South Los Angeles is home to diverse, low-income families, who possess minimal knowledge of the food disparity they reside in. Chicas Verdes has a solution to end the treacherous cycle of health problems created by food desserts in our community. Our team provides the students at Manual Arts High School with a healthy alternative of delicious organic smoothies and snacks while encouraging them to eat healthier. In our first year roll out of healthy advocacy, we focused on creating a smoothie café which resulted in many students pouring out of the cafeteria waiting for their organic smoothie. The goal was to bring about awareness of the food injustice, food deserts and healthy inequities within South LA to Manual Arts High School students, faculty, and community members. Our first survey in March 2016, asked how it would be to have a campus cafe. We provided information of our project and the benefits for them and their loved ones. As we concluded the pilot project for the first year, we realized our community was open to changes in health and food injustices.
In our drive to diminish the food dessert our community resides in and to inform our peers on the consequences of leading an unhealthy lifestyle, our second year of the project focused on awareness by establishing workshops that would take place in selected advisories. Advisories of different grade levels and different small learning communities were selected, totaling 95 students. A pretest survey for the first workshop asked students various questions; the results can be seen in the evidence subpage on the project plan tab. Subsequent workshops included screenings of Food Inc. and Forks over Knives along with a hands on activity: Food labeling and snack comparison. To engage and encourage the students to embrace healthier alternatives we provided alternative healthy snacks as can be seen in the Media Gallery.
As we conclude this second year we will offer our last series of advisory workshops in May. It will include a post survey to assess if their perception on health and food injustices education and awareness has changed. The students will also get the opportunity to experience our delicious organic smoothies.
This project benefits students, the community and future generations. As community members of South Los Angeles, it's important that we advocate for the community neglect we experience, especially with the rising health concerns visible within the Latino and African American communities. The goal of this project is to have our peers at Manual Arts High School become empowered with the new knowledge they learn about the food deserts we are experiencing, along with their exposure to what healthy food can taste like and become emissaries to their peers, family and community to enact a change on healthy eating habits and the impacts on all realms: socially, physically, environmentally, economically, and mentally.