Population: 267,503
Project focus: Access to foods that support healthy eating patterns
Goals:
- All families in Deerfield Beach have access to affordable fruits and vegetables
- All students in Deerfield Beach drink more water, and fewer sugary drinks
- Provide families by which to communicate ideas to local leaders in order to impact health-related policies and systems within their community
Partners and Approach
FLIPANY (Florida Introduces Physical Activity and Nutrition to Youth), along with Deerfield Beach Middle School and Nova Southeastern University, strove to bring students, staff and families from schools within Deerfield Beach together to improve access to better quality foods through their Healthy Students Healthy Community Advisory Board. The project team prioritized implementing a school pantry program, advancing a food waste recovery program and connecting parents and engaging students and teachers to create a culture of health for all Deerfield Beach families. FLIPANY also created a teacher training program which targeted and trained specific teachers that could operate as wellness champions and essential leaders in the future of the food pantry and food waste recovery efforts.
Successes (as of September 2022)
Throughout the pandemic, the team provided food boxes through drive-through food distributions to food insecure families in the region. Once it was safe, the team expanded on these efforts by introducing a food pantry inside of the middle school. Due to the success of these efforts, the team was able to expand to a second site at the local high school.
A partnership with FarmShare has increased the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables, and will create a sustainable, low-cost source of produce for the school. FLIPANY repurposed 100% of the food waste recovered from the Farm Share donations through composting and redirecting shelf stable items to the food pantry. FLIPANY’s collaborative relationship with local school leadership fostered a genuine interest in community food security. Because of this, school teachers took an active leadership role in developing policies and procedures for the school garden and even applied for their own county level funding to support gardening initiatives. Deerfield Beach’s unique initiative vividly demonstrates how to bring together local and regional health resources through meaningful community engagement!
Snapshot 1 (July - December 2020) | Snapshot 2 (January - June 2021) | Snapshot 3 (July - December 2021)
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