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Blanketed by flowering fruit trees, Santa Clara County was known as "Valley of Heart's
Delight." Cesar Chavez labored in apricot orchards. Today, Silicon Valley is home to
the richest companies in the world. Yet, many families struggle to provide healthful food
and safe environments for their children. Mrs Obama, your Let's Move! Initiative inspired
me to partner with Most Holy Trinity Church, a large, parish in East San Jose, comprised
of low-income, ethnically diverse parishioners, united by faith. The church brings together
families and friends and there’s always music, dance and food. Here’s what MHT Church,
San Jose State University and community partners are doing to fight childhood obesity in Santa
Clara County. By teaching Cooking Matters classes, are exposing
children to healthful foods, and reinforcing ChooseMyPlate guidelines. In Rethink your
Drink classes, church youth learned about the health costs of hidden sugar in soda,
enjoyed healthy fruit laden alternatives, and pledged to kick their soda habits. We
distributed hundreds of bilingual books about drinking water, and over a thousand Food Guides.
Church youth maintain their unique shared identities through music and dance.
Last summer, we created the MHT Food Justice ministry.
“uniting faith and nutrition, creating healthy minds and bodies one family at a time.”
San Jose State students worked side by side with MHT parishioners to increase access to
healthful foods by prescreening for SNAP benefits. We conducted a massive outreach in English,
Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese
“CalFresh is part of a national program called SNAP, se llama CalFresh, so we have
a table outside, our Food Justice table.”
We prescreened over 700 parishioners; and hundreds completed applications at the Mobile
Food Connection. At nearby Veggielution Community Farm, SNAP recipients can use their EBT cards
to purchase fresh produce at the weekly Farmstand.
We provide free monthly diabetes screenings, supported by Chris’ “Got Milk” Maestro
Positivo award. And the Food Justice ministry is working on assessing the food environment,
and on sustainable policies which will result in parishioners moving more, (song “M O
V E”); eating more fruits and vegetables and drinking more healthful beverages. We
hope to inspire the rest of the county. “and the home of the brave.”