Nutrition Workshop Exceeds Expectations

Nov. 29, 2011 - PRLog -- On November 5th, 22 families from Bridge Communities attended a highly informative and enjoyable nutrition workshop entitled “Dinnertime Dilemmas Solved!”  The workshop was made possible by a grant from the J.R. Albert Foundation and was put on in cooperation with Families Helping Families.

“Dinnertime Dilemmas Solved!,” which was held at Knox Presbyterian Church in Naperville, featured Edward Hospital Registered Dietician Toni Havala, caterer Suzanne Thibeault, and volunteer coordinator Joan Tanck.  The three women are also mentors with Families Helping Families, a community outreach and fundraising organization that is a Program Partner for Bridge Communities’ Transitional Housing Program.

The workshop featured nutrition information and healthy, quick, easy, inexpensive cooking and included both a lecture and cooking demonstration.  During the lecture, attendees learned healthy eating recommendations and the reasons that make some food choices healthier than others; how to translate those recommendations into daily practices; unhealthy food categories to avoid and why; the importance of healthy grains; and the difference between good fats and bad fats.  

“The clients were comfortable asking questions and asked lots of them,” said Vicky Joseph, Bridge Communities’ Naperville Outreach Coordinator and founder of Families Helping Families.  “They appreciated the depth and breadth of Toni’s knowledge.”

After the cooking demonstration, participants engaged in hands-on stations that addressed food safety, healthy grains and food chopping techniques.  In addition, each family in attendance received a $100 Wal-Mart grocery shopping gift card.

A participant survey illustrated the workshop’s effectiveness, with the program receiving an overall satisfactory rating of 98%.  Of most interest were the nutritional facts, food samples, and quick, easy recipes provided.

Bridge Communities offered this workshop, the second in a series made possible by the J.R. Albert Foundation grant, to educate its families on the importance of healthy eating for the whole family and also that healthy eating can be easy and fun.  Future workshops are being planned.

The J.R. Albert Foundation is a private foundation established in 2007, in Kansas City, Missouri, which makes grants in the United States to support health and nutrition research and programming.

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Bridge Communities, Inc. is a dynamic, grassroots, nonprofit organization committed to transforming the lives of homeless families in DuPage County through partnering with talented, resourceful individuals and groups in the community. Its program of transitional housing, mentoring and supportive services empowers the families to increase life skills and earning power to promote self-sufficiency, sustain permanent housing, and to break the cycle of poverty within the family unit. What began by co-founders Mark Milligan and Bob Wahlgren when they decided, in 1988, to begin to help homeless families, has now become a powerful current of change in the lives of hundreds of extremely low to low income at-risk families. To make a donation to support homeless families served by Bridge Communities, or to find out how to support Bridge in other ways, please call Mark Milligan at (630) 545-0610, ext.10 or visit www.bridgecommunities.org.