2005 Grassroots Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Education Initiatives

CFSAN has funded 19 grassroots food safety and nutrition education projects to be conducted around the country by FDA Public Affairs Specialists (PAS's) in the field. This year a large number of the projects target underserved populations, while others are aimed at persons especially susceptible to foodborne illness or those responsible for their care, such as pregnant women, parents of young children, seniors and persons whose immune systems are weakened by illness and medication. A majority of the projects target culturally diverse populations.

Now in its eighth year, the CFSAN/PAS Education Project Award Program has used a variety of innovative and effective means to deliver vital food safety information and training to consumers and key local multipliers such as WIC personnel, and community organizations and local agencies serving multicultural populations. New this year, the focus of the program has been expanded to include nutrition as well as food safety.

Many of the projects are multicultural and multilingual, including:

• Food safety workshops for pregnant women and other consumers in colonias (Hispanic neighborhoods) in cities along the Texas-Mexico border.
• Food safety and nutrition workshops for pregnant women at WIC clinics in Brooklyn NY.
• Translation of FDA food safety materials into Polish to be distributed at safe food handling demonstrations at community fairs and other activities for Polish-speaking consumers in Chicago and Milwaukee.
• Food safety workshops for Houston-area WIC personnel.
• Wise Food Choices workshops in Asian and Pacific Islander communities throughout the Los Angeles area.
• A Nutrition and Health Campaign for low-income Hispanic communities in Miami-Dade County.
• Food safety training for food service workers in Puerto Rico.
• Safe food handling instruction for clients of the Adult Expanded Nutrition Program in Tarrant County TX.
• Multilingual food safety exhibits at Border Binational Health Week events in the San Francisco area.

Several involve food safety exhibits and demonstrations at such public events as:

• The Virginia State Fair in Richmond which typically attracts 250,000 visitors, many from rural areas.
• The Erie County NY Fair, an 11-day event attended by more than 1 million people from NY, PA, NJ , OH and Canada.
• Various gatherings in GA, SC and FL.

Three are school based:

• Handwashing and food safety education for elementary school children in south central LA.
• Classes on nutrition and food safety in NJ in cooperation with Rutgers Cooperative Research and Extension.
• Safe food handling training for student Orange County FL public school students.

And three deal with new subjects for this program:

• Food safety for persons in NYC whose immune systems have been weakened by illness, treatment for illness or age, in partnership with the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, AARP and area senior citizen centers.
• USVI campaign on food safety during natural disasters.
• Education for DeSoto TX school and daycare food service personnel on food allergens and allergy symptoms.

Office of Food Safety, Defense, and Outreach

CFSAN Web site: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/