IDEAS TO PROMOTE
National Food Safety Education Month®
Our Mission
The purpose of National Food Safety Education Month® (NFSEM®) is to focus public attention on foodborne illness and the safe food handling practices consumers can follow to stay healthy. You may already be involved in similar or related education and information activities that are ongoing throughout the year, but we hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to expand your program to include NFSEM and this year's theme, Foodborne Pathogens: Your Family's Health is in Your Hands.
Listed below are some NFSEM promotions that we hope will be helpful. Borrow some of these ideas or be creative and try out your own ideas. Also, think about extending your reach by partnering with other food safety educators in your community.
Getting the Message Out Where People Are
Shopping malls, supermarkets, senior and community centers, schools and libraries, daycare centers, health fairs, community, faith based, and youth organizations, recreational events, hospitals and HMO's are good places for disseminating NFSEM information.
1) Set up an NFSEM exhibit in a shopping mall, supermarket, community center, or at a health fair. Partner with a youth, student, or community organization to staff the exhibit. Use a computer to demonstrate how to access the NFSEM 2007 web site and other food safety information on the Internet. Consider asking a computer retailer to lend you equipment for demonstrating how to access NFSEM and other food safety information on the Internet.
2) Partner with schools, libraries, and senior and community centers to display and distribute copies of the food safety materials from the NFSEM 2007 web site.
3) Speak to senior groups about the special importance of food safety for older adults because of their heightened susceptibility to severe foodborne illness as a result of age or underlying chronic conditions.
4) Partner with schools in your community to hold coloring contests. Print out the coloring pages from this site or have students visit the Web site at www.FoodSafety.gov for other kids' pages. Encourage local businesses to reward contest winners with certificates, plaques, or ribbons.
5) Arrange for an NFSEM exhibit at health-related local races/walks/bike rides during the month.
6) Encourage WIC clinic or daycare center directors to demonstrate the importance of refrigerating food quickly. Invite a local chef from a restaurant or community college. Include partners from the health department or public health students from a university Foodborne Pathogens: Your Family's Health is in Your Hands Day, and ask daycare center directors to invite parents of young children to participate. Print out coloring pages from this site for children to use and provide them with crayons.
7) Encourage local elementary schools to hold a "Kids Foodborne Pathogens: Your Family's Health is in Your Hands" Day. Contact your local chapter of the American Culinary Federation's Chef and Child Foundation for chefs who volunteer in schools. Offer poster and essay contests with BAC awards on the importance of food safety. Kids generally help out in the kitchen at home. Invite parents to demonstrate with their children the importance of keeping raw foods separate from ready-to-eat foods.
8) Contact your local or state representative of the National Restaurant Association and talk about how you can work together to celebrate NFSEM.
9) Send the NFSEM press release to school foodservice directors, encouraging reproduction and distribution to students.
10) Partner with local Girl Scout/Boy Scout troops to offer a special ribbon, medal, or certificate to scouts involved in activities promoting the NFSEM theme.
Getting the Message Out Through the Media
1) Television, radio, and print media are the most effective way of getting food safety information before large numbers of people. Typically, local media want to be involved with the communities they serve, especially regarding health issues. Many food-related businesses--e.g., food retailers and restaurants--are already actively involved in NFSEM and are potential sponsors for media initiatives.
2) Distribute the public service announcements shown on the site to radio stations in your community and ask that they be broadcast at various times of the day during NFSEM.
3) Encourage local television stations to use the NFSEM and Fight BAC!® logos and artwork found on the NFSEM web site and use the public service announcements as scripts to promote NFSEM.
4) Send the press release and the reproducible NFSEM artwork to local newspapers, journals, and magazines with a request that they cover NFSEM. Inquire about a special newspaper insert or supplement for NFSEM. Some papers will print one supplement free per month for various causes, while others will sell ad space in the supplement to offset printing costs.
5) Advertise NFSEM on your local food channel by having the theme Foodborne Pathogens: Your Family's Health is in Your Hands, scrolled (words moving across the bottom of the screen) and include messages about food safety. Local food retailers or restaurants may be interested in sponsoring the messages. Contact the local cable TV station's advertising staff early to negotiate a rate, create the text, and produce the message.
6) Partner with local media and businesses to cosponsor:
- Spelling contests for elementary and middle school students using words relating to food safety and foodborne diseases;
- Poster contests with entries exhibited in school cafeterias or homerooms; and
- Essay contests on the theme, Foodborne Pathogens: Your Family's Health is in Your Hands. All participants could receive recognition favors, such as Fight BAC!® pencils or erasers to "rub out" BAC! Winners could receive media recognition, certificates or plaques, and prizes donated by the sponsors.
7) In partnership with a local newspaper and a local restaurant, run a coloring contest using the coloring pages on the NFSEM web site. Children could submit entries either to the restaurant or to the newspaper. Entries could be displayed in the restaurant, along with prizes for the winners.
8) Many newspapers have sections targeted to children. Work with dailies or weeklies in your area to feature NFSEM and the children's food safety materials on the NFSEM web site in their kids's pages.
* Updated August 2007. Distributed May 2002 for use in September
2002 as part of the International Food Safety Council's National Food Safety
Education Month®.
* Also distributed by the Partnership for Food Safety Education
for use in
September 2004 and
September 2007
as part of the National Food Safety Education Month®.