Today was an interesting day in Community Nutrition (not like every day isn't interesting) because we had our first guest speaker! His name was Nick Claussen and he works for Athen's county job and family services. More specifically, he talked about the SNAP program (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or what is known as food stamps/food assistance. The program's purpose is designed to raise nutritional levels, to expand buying power and to safeguard the health and well-being of individuals in low-income households; in particularly, those in Ohio. In general, the food assistance program is only designed to meet 75% of a family's nutrition needs each month. To be eligible for food assistance benefits, multiple things are taken into accound: income level, number of people in the household, expenses, etc. Also, food assistance is used to buy food or food products and does not include: alcohol, tobacco, vitamins/medicines, hot food products, and non food items. The SNAP program receives its funding from the state and federal government, under the bill called the Standard Utility Allowance. SNAP is monitored and evaluated by the state government, but also SNAP looks at many different reports and statistics to plan and prioritize for the year to come. One such tool is the USDA food and nutrition report that comes out each year.
The role of the nutrition professional for SNAP is to be aware of its policies and benefits in case one has a client that is eligible to receive SNAP benefits.
Other than the speaker, we also talked about outcome objectives and saw a brief movie on Farm to School in MN. I was pretty motivated by the video. I thought the underlying message was amazing and the whole goal of the program. I think this is just one step closer to making this country a more healthful country.
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