Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful to have you be a part of our WOW-E Family.
Happy Thanksgiving
New Funding Opportunity: Recreation Economy for Rural Communities Planning Assistance
Deadline: Monday, November 22nd
Apply here
Last week the EPA Office of Revitalization announced an invitation for communities to apply for Recreation Economy for Rural Communities planning assistance! There will be a webinar on October 27th to share more information about the program and how to apply. More information and details (including a video featuring one of our pilot communities – Giles County, Virginia) are posted on the newly-updated RERC website! https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/recreation-economy-rural-communities
Ghostly Greetings!
Ghostly greetings from WOW-E! We hope you have a fang-tastic Halloween!
Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors to Improve Romeo T. Flores Park with 2021 WOW-E Community Challenge Grant
Tell us what you think about the Pop-Up Demonstration and Romeo T. Flores Park. Let us know here: tx.ag/parkPopUp (Link will be open between 10/23/2021 at 10:00am – 10/25/2021 at 11:59pm)
The Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors are thrilled to announce they were selected to receive the 2021 WOW-E Community Challenge grant. These are community grants supporting increased physical activity levels and improved access to healthy foods in five Texas counties: Hudspeth, Maverick, Starr, Webb, and Zapata.
The Zapata project provides technical assistance to install temporary crosswalks connecting the Romeo T. Flores Park and activate unused spaces within the park. This offers multiple potential benefits, like increasing pedestrian and cyclist safety, encouraging physical activity, and increasing park usage. This will help Zapata feel more like a connected community by temporarily improving the park’s appearance and encouraging people to use the park more often.
Pop-up projects like this are an important part of community change because they are relatively easy, low-cost, and temporary. These sorts of demonstrations can serve as pilot tests for more permanent and future changes. Feedback from the community is essential for measuring the project’s success. With that information, the Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors can make recommendations to the County Commissioners encouraging similar projects in other Zapata parks.
With assistance from other community members and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Zapata County, the Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors will tackle this project from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 23-24.
“We are incredibly proud that Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Working on Wellness Environments selected the Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors to receive this grant, made possible with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” said Sammy Luera, Extension Health Agent. “The WOW-E Community Challenge is an initiative to jump-start community efforts utilizing policy, system, and environmental changes and we hope to see wonderful results from our efforts.”
The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension WOW-E Community Challenge funds local projects that have one or more of these four goals:
- Enhance healthier food access and sales
- Establish health nutrition and physical activity standards in community places
- Implement efforts to establish new or improved active transportation
The challenge is part of the WOW-E work. They take a collaborative approach promoting increased physical activity levels and improved access to healthy foods. This project prioritizes local solutions and transformative change to health-related challenges in Texas communities. To learn more about the WOW-E Community Challenge, visit wowe.tamu.edu/pse/wowecc.
Football, Fall, and Farm to School
By Rebekka Dudensing, PhD
When we think about October, we usually think about pumpkins, fall leaves, and football games on chilly Friday nights. Fall festivals and Halloween festivities abound. The October calendar is also home to Health Literacy Month, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Health Education Week, among other awareness events.
One of the fun October events for students is National Farm to School Month. Congress created Farm to School Month in 2010 as a result of advocacy by the National Farm to School Network.[1] Just over a decade later, school children across the U.S. are celebrating farms and trying new foods each October.
Research in Central Texas showed that schools want to serve local foods. While price can be one barrier as farmers need to at least breakeven and schools have tight budgets, the type of product and how it is processed also affects is potential in schools. For example, cut “baby” carrots and broccoli florets require processing but are easier for many schools to prepare and serve.
Extension offers suggestions to help school food service professionals incorporate more local foods into school meals. Recommendations include choosing one food and building relationships with farmer suppliers or with existing distributors who may be able to obtain food from local suppliers.
During Farm to School Month, school food service may be helping students taste local products, many of which may be unfamiliar to youth. Teachers may plan field trips that let students explore the farms that produce their foods. They may also invite farmers to visit class. Agriculture is a science that provides countless opportunities for students to learn and grow. And with the USDA recently noting that 10.3 percent of U.S. jobs are in agriculture and related industries, agriculture science is valuable knowledge!
Families can celebrate Farm to School Month too. Visit a farm—pumpkins patches are great this time of year—or visit a farmers’ market and try a new food. If there isn’t time for that, find a local product at your grocery store and try that. Stores often mark local produce and specialty products (jams, pickles, etc.). Maybe you’ll even find a local treat for your fall festival or trick-or-treating. For more information and resources on Farm to School visit here.
[1] Celebrate Farm to School Month. https://assets.website-files.com/5c469df2395cd53c3d913b2d/61103f5761ddcbdcdb02aab4_F2S%20Month%20Fact%20Sheet%202017.pdf