By: Paige Dispaltro
On our second day in Asheville, we helped the YMCA in their goal to improve nutrition outreach. Each group was responsible for certain tasks: fixing up their bus for mobile food markets, helping at the mobile food markets, and going to elementary schools to help teach kids about nutrition.
Through these tasks we learned a lot about the importance of nutrition and how it can affect the health and wellness of a community. In Asheville, there are members of the community that don’t have access to healthy food but through the YMCA mobile food market, they are able to attain what they need to provide for themselves and their families. This outreach program would be beneficial to bring back and shape it to the needs of the Springfield community because it provides healthy food for everyone who needs it in the community, allowing for a healthier and more engaging community.
This experience is one that everyone on this trip will carry with them because we have seen the effects of not having enough food in a community, but we have also seen the lengths that many people will go to in order to help not just their community but others as well thrive and grow. This is something that we want to continue because engagement like this is what makes a community strong.