Tag: national challenges

Over the last few weeks NationSwell has been introducing you to a number of groundbreaking innovators who are making big bets to tackle even bigger national problems. The topics have ranged from education and national service to our recent installment featuring FoodCorps, an organization dedicated to teaching kids across 15 states how to grow and eat healthy food.
On June 24, NationSwell hosted its first ever live Google+ hangout to discuss these initiatives. NationSwell’s Special Projects Editor Cat Cheney, FoodCorps founder Curt Ellis, and FoodCorps service member Meghan McDermott elaborated on how specifically the organization is changing their communities for the better.
As Curt Ellis puts it, “There are 100,000 public schools in America. As we’ve learned in the first few years, changing a lunch line from serving french fries to fresh greens takes a great deal of work.” Not only that, but changing a child’s attitude toward food is not exactly a simple task either. To try to teach her students to have an open mind to foods they instinctively dismiss without trying, food service member Meghan McDermott’s motto in her classroom is ‘Don’t yuck my yum.’ “We try to teach kids to be respectful of other people’s eating habits and their likes and dislikes. We teach them that everyone’s tastebuds are different. They might like something now that they don’t like later, or they might not like something now that they might like prepared a different way.”
Watch the video above to learn more about the inner workings of FoodCorps and how you can get involved. To continue the conversation, share your thoughts with the hashtag #NSBigBets.