Center for Regional Food Systems

The SNAP Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program (SNAP-Ed) is designed to help families improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and stretch their food dollars. Partnerships are critical to SNAP-Ed success in the effort to build healthier communities, and land-grant universities’ Cooperative Extension agents are a key partner providing programs, messaging, and policy, systems, and environmental interventions alongside state departments of health and education, state-level nutrition networks, and other organizations. However, there are a multitude of factors influencing state and community partnerships, including funding disparities within the land-grant university system and among statewide implementing agencies, cultural awareness and integration, community food access, and so on. This three-part webinar series explores these factors, considers their impact on partnership development, and offers ideas and models for more equitable SNAP-Ed partnerships. 

This 90-minute webinar focuses on the intersections of community food access, nutrition security, and culturally appropriate education.

In this webinar you will learn about:

• Approaches and models to build equitable partnerships supporting the delivery of cultural/community responsive nutrition interventions and equity
• How Tennessee State University, an 1890 Historically Black University, has utilized a diversity database in their campaign efforts to accurately depict the communities they serve to increase healthy food access 
• The diverse SNAP-Ed participants of Hawaii, its unique challenges and strategies to address them, highlighting the ways in which pilina, or relationship building, is critical to SNAP-Ed direct education program development and implementation 

Featured presenters/facilitators include:

• Dr. Angela Odoms-Young, Associate Professor, Director, Cornell Food and Nutrition Education in Communities Program 
• Cassandra "Leihua" Park, SNAP-Ed Program Coordinator, University of Hawa'ii 
• Shea Austin Cantu, Director, Tennessee State University Community Nutrition Education Program
• Marion Mosby, Graphic Designer, Tennessee State University Community Nutrition Education Program
• Kolia Souza – Food System Equity and Advocacy Specialist – MSU Center for Regional Food Systems

This webinar was sponsored by the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems in collaboration with the Racial Equity in the Food System Workgroup. It aired on November 29, 2022

See other webinars here:

• Part 1: Federal and State Partnerships, and advocacy opportunities
• Part 3:  Equity Approaches and structures, innovative methods of collaboration

Funding for the Racial Equity in the System Workgroup is provided in part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.