FoodCorps Reconnects Oxford and Lafayette Children with Healthy Food

Garden Beds at Lafayette High School

FoodCorps service member Zachary Wehmeyer works with local community organizations and schools to open doors for Oxford and Lafayette children to learn about healthy and sustainable food options.

FoodCorps is a service organization, connected to AmeriCorps, which focuses on food education in schools through hands-on lessons, healthy school meals and growing a culture of health in schools.

“It is a service based organization whose mission can broadly be defined as reconnecting kids with healthy food in schools,” Wehmeyer said. “School is where kids spend the majority of their time and consume at least two-thirds of their calories. It’s a great opportunity to implement food education into the curriculum.”

Wehmeyer, who graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in human environmental sciences, chose Oxford as his first choice when applying for FoodCorps because he wanted to learn more about Mississippi and see it firsthand.

“I always thought it would be really interesting to come to Mississippi,” Wehmeyer said. “What I learned about Mississippi was largely health statistics, and that was the story that I had in my head. As I learned more and more about southern food traditions, I started to think to myself that there was more to the story. I knew that there was something more, and I wanted to get a better picture of what I wasn’t seeing.”

In his first six weeks in Oxford, Wehmeyer has made great strides in educating local children about healthy food. He is based out of the Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network office, assists with the Garden Club at Lafayette High School, oversees the kids’ corner at the Oxford City Market, teaches a garden club and cooking club at the Boys and Girls Club and works with area farms.

Wehmeyer is as passionate about nutrition and local food sources as he is about sharing this knowledge with children and helping to grow their acceptance of new foods.

“It is important to continually offer new foods to kids to increase their acceptablility to a wide variety of foods,” Wehmeyer said. “A lot of kids, if they aren’t getting it at home, aren’t necessarily being exposed to a lot of new foods. And we know that habits that are formed in childhood track throughout life.”

These FoodCorps services will be joined by even more as Wehmeyer’s time in Oxford grows because he is invested in seeing a change in the way Oxford and Lafayette children interact with food.

“With kids there’s an energy, a creativity and an openness to experiencing the world that is really a catalyst for changing the way they think about things,” Wehmeyer said. “Kids are the best resource we have.”

Amy Goodin is a writer for HottyToddy.com. She can be reached at argoodin12@gmail.com.

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