Hi everyone! My name is Jenny Dang and I will be a junior at Penn State majoring in Nutritional Sciences with a focus in Community Nutrition and Food Security in addition to minoring in International Agriculture and Environmental Inquiry. At Penn State I am involved in UNICEF, The Student Nutrition Association, and the Student Sustainability Advisory Council. In my free time I enjoy exploring Pittsburgh, practicing yoga, going to concerts, cooking, and painting.

With the Nittany Lion

My career goals include becoming a Registered Dietitian and working in public health and community development. I believe it is essential to build a connection between these two things in order to alleviate food deserts and reduce health disparities. Some issues that revolve around this topic stem from the complex cycle between poverty, food insecurity and hunger, poor development and low productivity. Creating programs, policies, and goals towards breaking the cycle would ultimately improve community health.

This summer, I am an intern at the YMCA in the Hilltop Community, which is comprised of eleven City of Pittsburgh neighborhoods and a borough. The center provides youth a safe and nurturing environment that drives on bridging the technology gap. By providing resources for the youth to imagine, design, and create, they are able to tinker and build grit – which is something the staff and volunteers value. Last year, a group of 15 kids who at first had no idea how to turn on a computer constructed a touch-screen computer kiosk from scratch!

My main responsibility at the Hilltop YMCA is leading the Summer Food Service Program. SFSP is one of the many programs in America’s food and nutrition safety net that works to achieve food security for all Americans. During the school year, many children receive free or reduce-priced meals through the School Breakfast and National School Lunch Program. However, these programs end when school ends. This leaves many children at risk for hunger, which can hinder their physical and cognitive development and make them more vulnerable to illness and other health issues (see the research here!)

Thus, SFSP was created through the Food and Nutrition Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to fill the hunger gap. The program provides children in low-income areas free, nutritious meals and snacks. Having this food security helps them get the nutrition they need to learn, play, and grow in the summer months.

Sharing is Caring

The meals usually consist of a sandwich, a fruit or vegetable, juice, and chocolate milk. To reduce food waste, the kids place what they don’t want on a sharing table, which other kids can have.

Aside from the structured daily agendas that include computer classes, lessons on creative writing, and art workshops, the kids are allowed to play games at designated times. On any given day, one can find the kids racing each other on Mario Kart, building houses on Minecraft, jamming out to Eye of the Tiger on Rockband, and laughing at Apples to Apples.

The Youth Room

After learning about programs and policies related to nutrition education and disseminating nutrition information, I am really excited to take the knowledge and skills I gained in those courses and implement my ideas.

Stay tuned to see the kids learn how to make healthy snacks, create videos about food, and grow vegetables at the community garden!

Hello everyone! My name is Julie Dunnigan and I am a rising junior at Penn State majoring in Nutritional Sciences with a dietetics option. I live in New Jersey right across the bridge from Philadelphia, and 10 minutes from The Food Bank of South Jersey– where I have been spending the first part of my summer.

The Food Bank of South Jersey is the largest source of food assistance in Southern Jersey. In operation for over 26 years, it has provided the equivalent of 76 million meals to people and families in need. But, over the years the city requiring the most assistance has been Camden, NJ. This is where I have been spending all of my time while working with the food bank.

Future chefs?

The food bank’s mission statement explains that its not only important to feed people, but to teach them about nutrition and healthy eating habits as well. So, I have been assisting with teaching classes to elementary and middle school students on the importance of healthy eating and cooking. At first I was nervous about how the kids would take to the lesson plans- middle schoolers are notorious for being tough to handle. But, these kids aren’t only interested in learning, they’re down right enthusiastic!

For the first few weeks I was sent down to a public middle school to help out with an after school program for boys. Another intern and I would help the instructor with a short lesson at the beginning of each session about a nutrition topic while the volunteer chief got the ingredients washed for that days recipes. We would have the kids take part in the demonstrations, my favorite being when the kids had to add up the amount of fat in a Whopper and scoop the equivalent amount of fat out of a can of Crisco. We were all shocked at how much fat there was! During the cooking portion of the class, the boys were responsible for all the preparation, cooking, and clean up with that day’s healthy recipes.

Tastier and more nutritious than fast food

In addition to the cooking classes, I’m also involved in a program the food bank runs which educates children on the farm-to-fork process. The kids learn how the crops from farms end up in grocery stores and, ultimately, on our plates. This activity is geared toward the younger students, in 3rd and 4th grade. The most amazing part about working with all these different kids is that I have yet to find one who does not want to participate in the activities. The curiosity they show makes teaching them so much more fun!

While I’ve had an amazing time working with the Food Bank of South Jersey, I’m also very excited to start the second and most thrilling part of my work this summer, in Africa. For the month of July I will be helping develop a farm for an orphanage in southern Ghana. I look forward to sharing my adventures with everyone when I get back in early August!