SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- The 2018 Viva Fresh Open Golf Tournament raised $25,000 for Brighter Bites, a Houston-based organization that promotes fresh produce in a way that gets results.
The organization, which started in Houston but over the past five years has expanded to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, New York, Washington, D.C. and Florida, runs a program in selected schools in economically disadvantaged populations where participants receive fifty servings of fresh produce, per week.
And that's not just a one-time thing. They run the program three times a year, twice during the school session for 16 weeks each, and once during the summer for eight weeks as part of its four part strategy to:
Fill the Plate, Educate, Make it Great and Replicate
"Our goal is to link the school and home environments to create a larger community around nutrition, health and behavior change," the organization says.
Working with the University of Texas School of Public Health, they've tracked participants' consumption and found a significant increase in fruit and vegetable consumption not only during, but in the short and long term.
“By giving kids access to fresh, nutritious food and showing them how to make the most of it, we help turn healthy habits into something even better: healthy lifestyles," said Brighter Bites founder Lisa Helfman.