By: Sarah Madden, Senior Writer
A group of Wofford student volunteers has pledged to feed a full, nutritionally balanced meal every weekday to about 50 first graders – from the beginning of October through the end of the school year.
Lauren Crawford, ’17, a member of the Arcadia Volunteer Corps (AVC), says that the group as a whole developed this health initiative, headed by Laura Kate Gamble, ’15. Currently, it takes about 12 volunteers a week (two or three per day) to prepare and serve meals, though many more are required for tutoring and supervising in the afterschool program. The program, called Nutrition Now, relies on the AVC, Spanish 303 students and LLC freshmen. According to Crawford, the Wofford cooking club will soon be getting involved as well.
“Every weekend, AVC volunteers do the grocery shopping for the week. Cooking volunteers prepare and sometimes help serve the food. Each volunteer has a specific role throughout the week,” says Crawford. The food is served to children participating at ARCH, an afterschool program for Arcadia Elementary first graders.
In addition to serving healthy food, the program teaches children to value nutritional foods in an attempt to impact their eating habits at home, too, says Robyn Cornett, ’18:
“Nutrition Now is important because it helps these kids learn to love new and healthier foods for themselves. Not only does it help their health directly, but I also hope it will help instill in them the same values in the rest of their families both now and down the road.”
Crawford says the reception has been overwhelmingly positive: the children served have shown an increased ability to discern what is or isn’t healthy, and the students are becoming more receptive to healthy eating, despite ongoing battles “fighting pickiness.” The program is also well-received by ARCH leadership, she says.
As a volunteer, Cornett says she is drawn to the program for several reasons.
“I absolutely love working with the kids. They look up to the Wofford students as well as the other volunteers… I got involved with Arcadia Volunteer Corps (AVC) as a way to give back to my new community fall semester of my freshman year, but also as part of civic engagement for Spanish 303,” she says. “I discovered there was a bigger need than just homework help and reading tutoring. The kids were eating Funions and Pop-Tarts for dinner, and that’s just not okay.”
Arcadia Volunteer Corps is always accepting new volunteers. For more information, contact [email protected]
