Lead Agency: Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus

It takes a community to create a healthy school environment. This philosophy guided the work of the Buffalo Healthy Eating by Design partnership to their goal of improving access to healthy foods for students at Bennett-Park Montessori Center (BPM), a public school serving economically-disadvantaged children. Students ages 11 to 13 participated in a variety of healthy eating activities, including a weekly salad bar in the school cafeteria, Food & Fun after-school workshops and special projects such as designing a "healthwalk" between the school and neighborhood, painting a healthy eating mural in the school and producing a healthy eating video. Students also exercised their creativity to develop a project slogan: "You are what you eat—don't be a Twinkie!"

Every part of the project engaged partners who provided the expertise and resources necessary for success. The Food & Fun workshops, conducted by the Massachusetts Avenue Project, used a mentoring model in which older youth served as primary educators, and special projects were co-led by professionals from the Buffalo community. These activities provided BPM students with positive role models to reinforce what they learned through the program and encourage healthy eating behaviors.

The cafeteria staff played another essential role in creating the healthy school environment at BPM. In early conversations with cafeteria staff, the partnership discovered that the staff understandably wanted to feel as if they were an integral part of the project. The partnership responded, asking for input and participation in implementing the weekly salad bar, responding to the staff's requests to brighten up the cafeteria with student art, providing Healthy Eating by Design logo t-shirts for them to wear when the salad bar was offered, and publicly recognizing the cafeteria staff as part of the partnership at media and promotional events. With these efforts, the cafeteria staff became champions for the project, encouraging students to make healthy food choices during school meals. According to a first-grader—who filled her plate with broccoli, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, cheese, a fresh apple, a roll and low-fat milk— "They said to enjoy the food and take whatever you want!"

It was this type of collaborative effort that helped the Buffalo Healthy Eating by Design project achieve real successes, many of which will be sustained. For example, the Buffalo School District took ownership of the salad bar and now offers it once a week to all BPM students. Additionally, the Food & Fun workshops are now included on the BPM after-school program roster, and the Massachusetts Avenue Project is poised to provide similar programs at other schools in the city. The future for larger-scale replication resulting from the Buffalo Healthy Eating by Design project is promising, as parents and staff from other schools have approached the partnership to learn how they can implement similar projects for their children.