Jubilee Consortium

Market Makeovers

One way health advocates are working to make more nutritious food available in neighborhoods without easy access to supermarkets is by trying to get more fruits and vegetables into corner stores. A new website, Market Makeovers, has launched to guide people who might like to organize such a project.

Market Makeovers features the work of some high school students in South Los Angeles who have been working on three stores in their neighborhood as case studies.

For two years, South L.A. Healthy Eating Active Communities Initiative and Public Matters have worked with the students from the Accelerated School. The initiative, funded by the California Endowment, is an effort to reduce childhood diabetes and obesity. Public Matters is a California-based group of artists, educators and media professionals working on neighborhood-based projects.

– Mary MacVean for the Los Angeles Times

Operation Frontline

With the nation facing increased rates of hunger and obesity, there is considerable need for nutrition education among low-income families. These families are less likely than those with higher incomes to have a healthy diet, to know about the links of diet and health, and to have the resources to properly feed themselves and their families. This has a serious, significant impact on their health and the health of their children. [i] In response to this health challenge we face both nationally and here in Los Angeles, Jubilee Consortium has joined forces with nationally-based nonprofit, Share Our Strength, and locally-based nonprofit, Center for Community & Family Services , to launch Operation Frontline at Jubilee and other sites in the greater Los Angeles area. Operation Frontline® is a groundbreaking nutrition-education program that connects families with food by teaching them how to prepare healthy, tasty meals on a limited budget. This exciting new west coast collaboration has been made possible by a generous seed grant from the ConAgra Foods® Foundation.

The Operation Frontline® program, developed by Share Our Strength, helps low-income families help themselves by teaching them how to prepare healthy, low-cost meals. Professional chefs and nutritionists volunteer their time and expertise to lead hands-on courses that teach adults, teens and kids how to get the most nutrition out of a limited budget.

Since 1993, Operation Frontline® and its hundreds of volunteer instructors have conducted 3,800 nutrition and financial-planning courses helping 43,000 low-income families in communities across the country learn how to eat better for less. Each class includes hands-on meal preparation led by a chef who teaches participants that cooking healthy foods can be simple, enjoyable, delicious, and affordable. The courses cover basic nutrition, food safety, and food budgeting so that participants are able to plan and prepare low-cost nutritious meals for themselves and their families. Operation Frontline® offers courses for adults, children, teens, and, parents and children together as well as persons living with HIV and AIDS. Operation Frontline® has received special recognition by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for excellence in nutrition education.

We would love to have your active involvement and support in building Operation Frontline Los Angeles into a vibrant program. Can you help? We are looking for local volunteer chefs and nutritionists to participate in the cooking classes and financial contributions to help fund the program into the future and make it a powerful vehicle for positive change for low-income families in Los Angeles. If you would like more information on how you can help, please call Jubilee Consortium’s Executive Director, Jaime Edwards-Acton at 323.469.3993.

[i] Much of the above information is taken from Share Our Strength literature