Yesterday I went on my first site visit to Alliance City Schools, as they are my ‘feeding’ focused mission organization that I am conducting a case study on. You see, I had 40 VISTA Summer Associate sponsors to choose from, and in order to have a credible research study, I couldn’t just choose five a random, so I developed a system for choosing, with the most basic criteria being the mission theme. I divided the sponsors based on their mission into five groups: faith-based, youth development and services, poverty alleviation, community development and services and feeding.

As my ‘feeding’ organization, Alliance City Schools Child Nutrition Services is dedicated to feeding area children year round. I woke up yesterday at 5 AM to drive to Alliance, near Canton, and make it there in time to sit down with the School Food Service Supervisor, meet the VISTAs and conduct an interview and focus group session. My first interview went great! I gathered a lot of information and am starting to visualize ways to incorporate it into a report and briefing document that will be meaningful. I was able to visit the Summer Food Service Program sites where the VISTAs organized activities with the kids and observe the kids getting their lunch (pretzels and cheese, fruit, veggies, milk, and sunflower seeds!), and playing dodge ball. It was awesome to see a huge crowd of 15 to 20 kids walking to the school to get lunch and lining up outside waiting. I couldn’t believe how fast they ate their food, rushing off to go play with their friends and the VISTAs.

After all of the kids left after the last snack being served at one of the VISTAs’ sites, I was able to sit down with the group of six and talk about their experiences as an AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associate and the impact they have on their community. They were all from the Alliance area originally and therefore had a strong connection to the community and the kids with whom they are building relationships.Another conversation I had with the VISTAs talked about how attendance at the locations depended a lot on what was being served that day for a lot of the kids, but some of the kids who were brought by their parents everyday most likely came to receive a free meal. The VISTAs expressed their frustration with the program’s federal government restrictions that do not allow parents to also eat, or for a lactose-intolerant child not being able to have a juice option, because then all children would have to be offered juice. I completely sympathize and understand their frustrations, but it is often hard to make a choice between giving into an observed want or need for one person (potentially jeopardizing subsidized reimbursement for the whole program) and ignoring the wants and needs of the community. That’s why advocating for better policy and transparent decision making is so important.

This video below is a little off topic, but my visit yesterday reminded me of it, and I think anytime you have a TedTalk to share you should. So here is Ann Cooper, she,”has a frontline view of the daily battle to keep kids healthy — and of the enemy, the processed-foods industries that, it sometimes seems, want to wrap every single thing that children eat in a fried coating and then a plastic bag. As the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley (California) Unified School District, she’s an outspoken activist for serving fresh, sustainable food to kids.”

I wish she was my lunch lady growing up!

I really enjoyed my first case study site visit and I’m looking forward to another three I have scheduled for next week.

Until next time,

Melissa