Last week at our Saturday farmers market, we met Kelly Koss, a 26-year-old Americorp VISTA member who worked as a nutritionist for the Campus Kitchens Project at Northwestern University.
Kelly has worked closely with Friends to help accomplish our two core missions: increasing awareness about SNAP benefits in downtown Evanston farmers’ markets and educating the public on healthy eating.
Kelly said she has been personally invested in the issue of promoting the availability and accessibility of farmers markets across the nation, especially through non-profit organizations like Friends.
“I was definitely surprised at first that a lot of people [I’ve met] were not aware of the wonderful incentives to purchase from your downtown Evanston farmers’ market,” she said.
And so far she has helped us host a community meet and greet last Saturday and helped us inform the public on any questions they may have about nutritional eating, Friends’ commitment to matching every SNAP dollar spent in our farmers’ market and wellbeing eating as a whole.
Kelly has been a long-time farmers’ market aficionado for quite some time, and frequented the farmers’ market in Maine where she attended graduate school. Her love for farmers’ markets comes naturally, especially since she has dedicated herself to increasing awareness about proper nutrition.
Just last year, Kelly spent time interning at a dietary hospital treating those with chronic nutritional diseases, and has made a commitment to help not only those who suffer from nutritional deficiency-related ailments but also those who are on the verge of developing one.
“Now I’m in a position to work on the preventative side of helping people avoid these nutritional diseases,” Kelly said.
In fact, Kelly played a key role at her Campus Kitchens chapter at Northwestern by introducing “Sowing Seeds for Healthy Kids,” a garden-based nutrition education curriculum which helps kids make healthy choices by helping them learn where their food comes from.
“That was one of my favorite assignments to work on with CKNU,” she said. “I piloted Sowing Seeds for Healthy Kids at Family Focus last winter.”
According to Kelly, there were about 20 students in each class around the ages of 8-10. They didn’t have access to a garden and it was too chilly to go outside, but the curriculum was easy to adapt to a classroom setting.
“The group of kids we taught already had a basic understanding of what a healthy diet entails and it was wonderful to witness them using that knowledge to discuss where our food comes from and where we can find nutritious food in our community,” she added. “I think their favorite lesson was the second, which includes a discussion about what nutrients plants and people need, a compost relay race activity, and a layered snack meant to represent the different layers of a compost pile.”
She led a pilot program of this curriculum with the Sodexo district dietitian and was able to send students home with the groceries needed to make each lesson’s suggested recipe.
Thankfully, she will be around this coming week at the next downtown Evanston farmers market. Come by and say hello, pick up some delicious and nutritious snacks (like beet and cucumber salad) and learn more about how Friends and the Northwestern chapter of The Campus Kitchens Project has worked to increase awareness on nutritional eating.
Want to learn more about The Campus Kitchens Project? Read our previous blog post!
