[00:00:17] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to Just A Bite. I'm your host, Eliza Richardson, Nutrition Programs Coordinator at the Ohio association of Food Banks. Today we are diving into the state of nutrition education in 2025 and what recent changes to nutrition programming means for vulnerable Ohioans. On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill act, also known as HR1, which changed many aspects of nutrition programming in the United States.
Among the multitude of provisions included in HR1 was the effective termination of all required funding for snap ed past September 30, 2025.
Therefore, as of October 1, 2025, snap ed is unfunded in the United States and its territories. SNAP ED stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education and was a federally funded program that supported nutrition education and policy systems and environment changes in low income communities.
SNAP ED was a program operated by the United States Department of Agriculture, the USDA who partnered with state and local organizations to meet vulnerable people where they are and teach them how to stretch their budget and prepare healthy meals for their families in the State of Ohio. This program was administered by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, odjfs, who then worked with the Ohio State University College of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Department of Extension to implement SNAP ED in communities across the state Ohio. SNAP ED regularly led classes on shopping and cooking on a budget, school based programs, community gardens, food bank partnerships and partnerships with health clinics. Today we are sitting down with Ana Claudia Zubieta, the former Director of Ohio SNAP Ed Pat Bebo, the Assistant Director of the Ohio State University Extension Family and Consumer Sciences Program Mona Lisa Hoffman, former Program Coordinator for the Northwest region and Marcia McCormick, former regional program Specialist for the South Central Region.
To learn more about how SNAP ED made a difference in the lives of vulnerable Ohioans and why nutrition education is such an important investment in low income communities.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Today we are sitting down with the staff who have played such a pivotal part in staff education over the decades. With me today is Ana Claudia Zubieta, Pat Bebo, Mona Lisa hoffman, and Marcia McCormick. They have been working with SNAP ED for many years now, so they are truly experts on how nutrition education has made a difference in the lives of vulnerable communities across the state.
I'd like to give you all each a chance to introduce yourselves to our listeners.
Ana, if you'd like to start, we.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Can start with you.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: Thank you, Eliza. Yes, my name is Ana Claudia Subieta and I am the director of Snap Ed. I have been with Snap Ed for the last 20 years.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Perfect. And Pat, you can introduce yourself as well.
[00:03:19] Speaker D: Thanks Eliza. My name is Pat Bebo and I am an Assistant Director for Family and Consumer Sciences for OSU Extension. And I've actually been working with snap ed for 22 years. Nine in Massachusetts and 13 in Ohio.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:03:35] Speaker E: And Monalisa, I'm Mona Lisa Hoffman and I'm a Program Coordinator in Putnam County. But I've also worked in Allen county and I've been with the program for 30 years.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Awesome. That's 30 years. That's amazing. Thank you so much for all of your work. I'm sure you are going to have plenty of amazing stories to share later on.
And finally, Marcia McCormick, would you like to introduce yourself as well?
[00:04:00] Speaker F: Sure. I'm Marcia McCormick. I am a regional program specialist with Ohio's Camp Ed. I serve in the South Central region.
I've only been doing that for a little over three years. Prior to that, I was a Program Assistant in Southern Ohio for 22 years.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you all so much for the introductions. We're so happy to have you here. Before we dive into some questions, I just want to level set with our listeners around some terminology so that they can fully understand the impact SNAP ED has had on communities around the state. For our listeners, Ohio, SNAP ED primarily refers to the individuals accessing their programs as their participants. Just like we that the food banks refer to our visitors as our neighbors. If you hear our guests talking about their participants during this episode, this means any individual who they are serving as a part of their programming. I first want to chat with you all to get a better understanding about what SNAP ED was as a program, the impact it had on vulnerable communities, and how eliminating the funding for this program will impact SNAP eligible people in Ohio and across the country.
Can you start off by level setting with me and our listeners on what SNAP ED was and what role it played in supporting low income families?
[00:05:10] Speaker E: Sure.
[00:05:10] Speaker D: Thanks Eliza. This is Pat.
SNAP ED has been a critical component of the nation's public health infrastructure for over 30 years. It was the largest public sector nutrition education program in the country and it's got a legislative directive to promote food choices, healthy food choices for Americans consuming consistent with dietary guidelines for Americans after its humble beginnings. And it did begin humbly in 1992 with seven states. By 2004, the program grew to include 52 states and territories and the legislative directives have evolved for the program from only direct education to include public health approaches focusing on behavior change, food access, and making a healthy choice an easy choice.
By 2024, Snap Ed reached over 2 million low income Americans from preschool age to senior citizens through direct education. With over 30,000 partnerships across the country, we've also clocked 10 million contacts through our public health approaches and 1.8 billion people have interacted with our social marketing campaign campaigns across the country.
A recently conducted Return on Investment study showed that one for every $1 spent, Snap Ed returns at least $5.36 in future health and economic benefits.
In Ohio, our outcomes have mirrored the national results. We reached over 283 low income Ohioans through direct education and almost 3 million Ohioans through Celebrate your Plate or social marketing campaign.
The program outcomes include decreasing food insecurity, increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, and increasing physical activities. These are really impactful outcomes that will be lost among a vulnerable population in Ohio.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I I mean based on what the stats that you were just sharing with us, I can tell that SNAP ED was really a pivotal program in our communities all around the state and we are surely going to be miss the impact that it has had over the years.
I'm curious to understand a little bit about what a typical SNAP ED program or intervention looks like specifically in the state of Ohio. What kinds of education or activities did you operate throughout the state with this program and who is primarily responsible for conducting this education around the state?
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Yes, I can respond to that.
SNAP ED in Ohio uses community and public health approaches that combine direct education, social marketing and policy systems, and environmental interventions, also known as PSEs.
Throughout this delivery model, concepts that participants learn in nutrition education classes are reinforced by marketing messages that encourage eating and physical activity behaviors that are consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
[00:08:10] Speaker F: Snap.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: It also works with organizations and communities to support them in encouraging these behaviors by promoting PSCs that increase access and availability to healthy foods and physical activity, such as implementing food procurement guidance for food pantries and transforming spaces in schools to allow for more engaging and fun physical activity.
SNAP ED in Ohio was implemented in all 88 counties and the SNAP educators or program assistants deliver direct education by providing classes in collaboration with community partners within their counties.
In addition, program assistance identified and supported opportunities for PSC interventions and utilized the social marketing campaign Celebrate youe Plate to reinforce important nutrition and physical activity messages.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Amazing.
And turning to Monalisa and Marcia, since you two were out in the field working with participants directly and conducting this education, what specific things did your students really value about these interventions and how did you make lasting changes in their lifestyles?
[00:09:19] Speaker E: The participants really valued that we met them where they were because when we go in to teach a program, we might go in with one idea.
And when we get there, we find out, well, they really don't need to learn about what we were going to teach, but they want another aspect of things that we can give to them and provide for them. And so we would learn maybe that we thought we would go in and teach them how to cook a full meal. And they didn't even know how to do the basics. So we would have to take a step back.
And we usually do series.
So the first part of the series, the first day, we would find out what the participants really needed. Instead of giving them what we think they need, what do they really need? We would go in and learn what they wanted and then try and work our programming around that. And they really appreciated that because they could use that more than maybe what we.
What we wanted to give them. I'll give you an example. One of the first programs I taught when I was in Allen County, I thought, you know, I come from a different county, so I come from rural, and Allen was more. Was more of a city.
So all of my ideas on how to save at the grocery store, like, I would. This was way back, as I said, 30 years ago. So I would say, yes, you can go to one store for this sale and then go to the next store. And one of the ladies got up and said, I don't go across town.
That's not what we do here. And I said, okay. Then I said, I guess now you need to teach me and tell me what your needs are so that next time I come back, I'll have something that you need or that you want.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: That's a great point. Hearing really listening to your participants, the neighbors in your community about really the things that they're looking for and what's going to work with their lifestyle in order to make that lasting change in order to help them live healthier lives.
So that's really great. That's a really great example. Would you like to chime in as well?
[00:11:26] Speaker F: Yeah. I was going to piggyback on when Mona Lisa said, we need to listen to participants. I think one of the biggest things that especially our older youth and adult participants appreciate is that somebody cares enough about them to come into their community and to try to help them to be healthier. So a lot of times they don't have a lot of interaction with people outside of maybe their own family or their own small group, and that they see that somebody really cares is very important.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Really getting that connection with neighbors and participants, really making the connection with these community organizations is something that we know really well that our neighbors really value and seeing that there are community based organizations and staff who really care about them and making sure that they have access to the resources that they need and really being there for them. I love that.
And we know very well here at the Ohio association of Food Banks that food insecurity and nutrition security, while very different process problems with different solutions are often experienced simultaneously. Just to level set for our listeners, the USDA defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life which can involve difficulty providing enough food for all household members due to a lack of resources.
Whereas the USDA focuses on nutrition security as a more comprehensive goal which means that all people always have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and preferences for a healthy and active life.
As we discussed earlier, the primary recipients of SNAP ED programming were SNAP eligible families. This means that your average participant has a net household income at or below 185% of the federal poverty level and is likely experiencing both food insecurity and nutrition insecurity. How did you balance providing quality information on healthy eating to your participants while still recognizing that many of your participants may not be able to afford the healthy foods that they need to support a healthy lifestyle and making sure that they can access healthy food while still staying within their budget?
[00:13:36] Speaker C: Yes, as Mona Lisa mentioned, we focus on meeting participants where they are, acknowledging the real financial and access challenge challenges that many face while still emphasizing that healthy eating is possible on a budget.
SNAP IPAs provide practical, affordable strategies such as choosing seasonal produce, buying frozen or canned fruits and vegetables with low sodium or no added sugar, and planning meals around SNAP benefits and store sales.
We also use recipes and cooking demonstrations from Celebrate youe Plate that feature low cost familiar ingredients to show that healthy meals don't have to be expensive or complicated.
During our classes, PAS validated participants experiences and encouraged them to share their own cost saving tips. Creating a supportive non judgmental environment by focus on flexibility, affordability and real life applications, we were able to promote nutrition education that felt empowering and achievable rather than overwhelming and out of reach.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really great point. You know coming back to that, meeting your participants and neighbors where they're at, making sure that you're highlighting, you know, how to shop at a discount and like the things that you can do to stretch your budget. Stretch your SNAP benefits because we know the SNAP benefit doesn't stretch far from any families and a lot of them run out of their SNAP benefits within the first two or three weeks of the month. So really like learning how to incorporate that into their lifestyle and making sure that what they're shopping for it fits within their budget so that they can really live the healthiest lifestyle that they can. Mona Lisa or Marcia, would you like to elaborate on this connection at all?
[00:15:25] Speaker F: Yes, I think one of the things that we look at sometimes, and it goes back to what Mona Lisa said earlier about you go in with one expectation and then you find something else out.
You may go in with this great low cost, healthy recipe, but it requires an oven to prepare, and some of our families don't have access to an oven. So then we have to think about how we might be able to adapt or make substitutions. So it could be prepared in a microwave or, or in an electric skillet or whatever they have access to.
Even some no cook recipes because some families may not have electricity at a certain point. And just kind of being flexible, always kind of thinking ahead and, you know, how could we do this? And even with our recipes, you know, we might have a recipe that calls for ground beef, and maybe they don't have ground beef, but they could substitute beef for the ground beef. And that's low cost, using items that they have on hand.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really great point that I think a lot of people don't necessarily thinking about when it comes to access to healthy eating is the appliances that you have on hand and your access to electricity and being able to keep your lights on and your gas on on a regular basis.
Being able to, you know, keep a roof over your head is pivotal to making sure that you're able to cook for yourself at home, let alone accessing refrigeration on a daily basis and consistently and accessing a microwave or an oven. So that's a really great point.
What are some of the other barriers your students are likely to experience that we may not normally think of as contributing factors to obtaining a healthy lifestyle?
[00:17:05] Speaker E: I always looked at it as being a connector because a lot of times they would come in and be working, worried about other things. So we would need to know what other agencies could provide, where they would go if their heat was turned off, where they would go if something else would happen. Because if they don't have those other needs taken care of, they can't even start to think about how to eat healthy. They're just worried about what's happening that week or that day. So we have to know a little bit about who we can connect them with. So, so we were kind of a connector to not just a nutrition source, but a connector to other agencies, what other agencies provide in the area.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great point. I love that.
[00:17:47] Speaker D: Can I also add that that's the key to being embedded in communities with SNAP ED being in all 88 counties, is that the participants learn to trust the PAs and, and trust them to know that they're going to give them good information if they have other needs and that they can ask them if they have other needs. So it really is a cornerstone of the program that we had that breadth of representation across the state.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so important for people who are in community all the time to be a really trusted resource within the people that they're serving.
And I think it's very apparent that you all, as SNAP ED program assistors, were able to make that connection with your participants and with neighbors all across the state.
I think that's, that's really incredible. With the end of SNAP ed funding on October 1, under the one Big Beautiful Bill act, we have seen a huge shift in how nutrition education and outreach happen or doesn't happen across the country. What impact has or will this elimination of SNAP ED funding have on, on the community? And what has kind of been the ripple effect for both the community members you serve and your staff who have been a part of this work?
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Yes, the elimination of SNAP ED funding and the One Big Beautiful Bill act has had a profound impact on our community.
For many participants, SNAP ED was one of the most consistent sources of free, practical nutrition education. Hands on cooking opportunities and guidance on how to make healthy choices without with healthy choices within a tight budget. Without this support, many families are now left without access to credible, relatable nutrition information.
We're already seeing a decreased engagement in healthy eating programs, fewer community classes, and a loss of connection between PAs and the participants who rely on that ongoing support for the community. This shift widens the gap in health equity. Those already facing food insecurity now have even fewer tools to make nutritious choices, potentially leading to long term health consequences such as an increased rate of chronic diseases and preventable health issues. For our staff, the impact has been both emotional and professional.
Many educators we were deeply invested in this work have lost positions or are struggling to find ways to continue serving the communities through other means.
There is a shared sense of loss, not just of employment, but of purpose and connection with the families we have served.
Overall, the ripple effect is significant.
Communities lose trusted educators and resources.
Staff lose meaningful work. And the broader goal of improving public health through education becomes harder to achieve.
The hope is that even in the absence of formal funding, we can find creative partnerships and community based efforts to keep this important work alive in some capacity.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's really important. What you said right there at the end is keeping those partnerships alive to try and keep the amazing work that you guys have done over the years continuing on in communities.
And I can only imagine the impact that this has had on your staff who are going to be looking for new roles and our neighbors who are going to be facing higher rates of chronic related diet disease that we also know at the food banks, that our neighbors, who are the same people in the community that you guys are targeting with your education as well, are at high school risk for these diet related chronic diseases because of the rates of food insecurity that they face. So it's going to be a big problem that we as partners across the state are really going to need to figure out how to be flexible and combat over the next couple of years and figure out what this really looks like going forward without this pivotal program.
And we also talked earlier about how SNAP Ed program assistants are in nearly every county across the state state conducting nutrition education with schools, food banks, community organizations and more. Are there specific regions or populations in your state that you think will be hit hardest by these cuts?
[00:22:06] Speaker F: I work largely with the Appalachian counties and in our area there aren't a lot of other nutrition education opportunities.
SNAP Ed is very important.
We have worked so hard to build our programming that in many counties we've kind of saturated the population with our program. So I'll give you an example. One of our program assistants had worked with a child in the school and then had worked with the father in a recovery center and then the mother attended a Cooking matters class. And when they figured out that the same program assistant was providing this nutrition education to all three of them and they were feeding off of each other, the fathering recovery was excited that when he was able to see his child again, he could help them cook healthy foods. The mom was excited because she could get the dad on board to kind of help with this.
You're not going to see that with very many programs. We are out reaching different members of of the family at different sites because we just. Our outreach was so large. And so I think it's really important in those very rural counties.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great point you're tackling.
You're providing education to young students, high school age students. You're Providing education to Food bank neighbors and pretty much everybody in the broad area, regardless of what their ages and where they're kind of meeting you. And so I think that's a really great thing about this program, is that you're able to just bring in a captive audience, no matter who they are.
And like you said, bring them all in to share this experience in one household, no matter who it is.
[00:23:52] Speaker F: And then you have that synergy. It's not just what you taught one of them, but they teach each other and they grow together.
And that's very unique about SNAP ed.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: I think that's amazing. Although SNAP ED primarily focused on providing nutrition education to SNAP recipients specifically, other federal nutrition education programs exist, such as the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, also known as EFNEP or fnep, or nutrition education provided through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as wic. Why is it important to have SNAP ED as an additional fabric federal program existing alongside these other federal programs? And what does SNAP ED give to neighbors that these other.
That these other programs won't be able to?
[00:24:38] Speaker D: That's a really good question, and lots of times that question has been asked. Eliza and I have to say that SNAP ED has always intended, and we've always worked with those other two programs as a complement and not as a report placement or competition, because we all do something different. We're talking the same foundational education components.
But each of these programs is critical in their own way and how they do their work guided by federal guidance for their work. For instance, SNAP ED originally back in 1992, was actually modeled after the FNEP model, which is a pair of professional models.
But the funding directives, the funding and legislative directives deviated over time.
And FNEP is part of legislation that funds cooperative extension.
And SNAP ED is part of legislation that funds SNAP in the Farm Bill. And so that differentiated the two. But FNEP focused on teaching families with children and youth, and that was their directive. And they have a specific directive of courses and classes, whereas SNAP ED directives always included preschools to seniors. So what Marsha was saying a moment ago, you could reach those different populations in different areas, and you may have overlapped with the family to create the synergistic effect.
So it includes a wider audience. In Ohio, SNAP ED and FNAP are both implemented by OSU Extension, but SNAP ED in other states doesn't necessarily have to work that way. So we have our experience in Ohio, but SNAP ED in other states is implemented by Nonprofits, it depends on what the state agency chooses to do.
So they focus in those other states on special relationships. For instance, there's several nonprofits in the northern tier states of our, of our country that service Native American populations. And they will have those nonprofits that work specifically with those populations providing that education and public health approach.
In addition to that, that directive differentiates the two parts programs.
And that's how we have functioned over time.
FNEP has a much smaller footprint in Ohio because it has much less funding. And so that has also differentiated. But where we are in counties that we are both existing, we complement that education. We don't overlap it. So there is different populations getting that education. And in addition, you might find that you could go to a three lesson series of SNAP Ed and you have participants that want to go further and they meet the qualifications for the FNP program. We can turn them right over to the FNAP program and they get a whole different look and way of educating. So it really has worked out well.
WIC is an important, incredibly important safety net program for pregnant and postpartum women and their children up to five years old. It's a great program and provides food resources, which SNAP ED and FNEP do not.
And they do education, but typically on a one on one basis. Sometimes they do workshops, but they often relied on SNAP ED to be the workshop provider.
So we work together. They would take their one on one participants and invite them to a SNAP ED workshop to further advance their skills in education.
So we really worked together to make sure that we were servicing the population as best as possible, giving them as many skills as possible to learn cooking skills, through food tastings, through recipe development, through food safety education. So we really created this overall education program that serviced and benefited the whole family.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Really? That's fascinating. And I know that that question like you said, comes up a lot about what exactly is the difference between all these programs? And it sounds like SNAP ED was kind of a bridge connecting all of these programs together. And without SNAP ED bed there, it's going to be really hard to, you know, reach those other members of the community that FNAP and WIC nutrition education might not automatically serve.
[00:29:17] Speaker D: And like Mona said earlier. Right. If they came in contact with a mom that didn't have resources, they could certainly say, well, you need to connect with wic.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:27] Speaker D: So we were constantly circling around the resources that are available to make sure that people had as much support and stability as possible.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's kind of like I kind of envision like, three points being connected by, like, a string, and then you cut one of the strings and then like, the whole thing. Like, there's not that bridge anymore coming back to all of these programs to loop them all together.
And there's, in addition, there's not that access to adults where FNEP and nutrition or WIC nutrition education are kind of primarily focused on children and the parents of children.
There's a really big crisis in adult nutrition literacy and senior nutrition literacy, and that's going to be really missing as well.
Yeah.
I would love to hear some reflections from you all about what recipients of SNAP ED programming had to say about the program. What specific things did your students really value about these interventions and how did it make lasting changes in their lifestyles?
[00:30:25] Speaker E: A lot of participants that I had would just comment, this is practical stuff that I think I can do at home.
Whereas if they would go to a hospital and talk with the dietitian, they didn't come down to the level where they could understand that, oh, I can open this can of beans and I can open this can of tomatoes and add some peppers, and I can make a nice bean salsa. And that really can be a meal along with some tortilla chips or make it into a burrito.
So that practicality and being able to see it and see that, oh, this only takes 10 minutes to do, I can do that.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So really accessible.
[00:31:08] Speaker E: That's the most comments I got back were, I can do this, or I didn't know you could change a recipe, one ingredient, like you had said, Marcia, from having the ground beef to the beans, or those types of things that are just practical things that they can actually use at home.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Marcia, do you have anything to add to that?
[00:31:26] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:31:27] Speaker F: Often the feedback that we get from participants is often very simple. Like, I've started eating whole grain bread and it's all because of the SNAP ED class, or I didn't think that I could make a meal with canned salmon. So kind of like Mona Lisa says practically things, but it might be just one small change, but they adopt that, and then the next time you encounter them, they work on another change. And, you know, it's all about those small changes. There was an example when I was a program assistant, I worked with a grandmother that was raising her grandchild, and she was involved in a class through Help Me Grow.
And I didn't see her after that class for three or four years.
And she was actually at a food pantry I was at, and she came to me and told me who she was because I didn't recognize her because she had lost well over 50 pounds. And she said, I knew I had to raise my grandchild. And after sitting through those nutrition classes and helped me grow, I knew I had to make some changes to live healthier.
So there's impact like that that we often weren't able to see or record. Every once in a while, we get a little glimmer of it, But I think it's all those small changes, and they add up, and they really did have some big results.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: That's amazing. And I can only imagine how many more of your participants are out in the community and have that same experience, but you just haven't been able to hear it from them. So I'm really glad that you were able to bump into her at the food pantry to be able to hear that from her. That's amazing.
Additionally, have you heard anything from your students about their concern or disappointment for the underfunding of the program, and how will this impact the individuals that you serve daily?
[00:33:08] Speaker F: I think what most of my folks are hearing is the participants feel like this was a program that valued them, and now it's gone, and so they've lost some sense of value.
It was really important to them.
They may not even realize how important it was. I know with a lot of senior groups that we work with, we're doing the nutrition education, but they're kind of a peer support group, and they will encourage each other to eat healthier. So they'll ask, you know, what did you have? What are you having for dinner? Or, you know, maybe we could get together and cook something and share it to stretch our food dollars. So they're going to miss that, and it's going to be very difficult for them to, I guess, really verbalize what they're missing, but there's going to be a big void there.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Did you want to add anything to that? You don't have to.
[00:34:03] Speaker C: I think one thing I wanted to add, if you want to use it or not, but we hear also from teachers in schools and children in schools that when actually when we were working at the fair with jfs, teachers would come by or parents with their kids, and they would recognize some of the program assistants that were working there, and they would express a lot of disappointment when they realized we wouldn't have the program this year anymore. And so I think it's.
We hear some things, but there's a lot more sentiment that we're not hearing, and it's going to get greater as time goes by, and they don't see the program coming back.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Definitely, yeah.
[00:34:58] Speaker E: And we work with a lot of individuals that lived on their own and had many challenges and didn't necessarily know how to cook well for themselves. And we would help them through that process.
So people with the different disabilities found worth with the program and found ways to be able to cook their own meals because there's a lot of people out in the community that live on their own, but they really have a difficult time cooking meals and knowing what to do. And because we can bring it down to a simple level for them, they can now make their own meals and eat more of a healthy meal. And they're so excited about it. And you see the weight loss or you just see the health then become.
[00:35:51] Speaker F: Healthier because of it and the hands on cooking or cooking demonstration. So they may not want to spend their SNAP dollars to make a right recipe that they've never tasted, but because we could make it, provide a tasting, then they could discover that, hey, I kind of like this and it's healthy. So I spend my dollars on that.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: That's a great point. I even do that. I find a recipe online and I'm like, oh, this looks really good, but I'm not sure if I'm going to completely like it. So I don't want to spend my money on it. So that's a great point that I've never thought about.
[00:36:22] Speaker D: So I was at an event a few weeks ago and I was with a friend and she brought a friend and I had a SNAP ED T shirt on. And the person that I did not know said, oh my gosh, SNAP Ed. And I was like, you know, SNAP Ed?
Well, it turns out she approved the 21st century after school grants for the state.
And so many of those grants wrote in SNAP Ed as a partner.
And so she knew that and I, and I said, well, they won't be having that anymore. And she said there are so many of those grants that included that across the state.
So there's an example of, you know, we really aren't. We don't. May not see that feedback completely, but here's a person that knows that that was written into multiple after school education grants that will not be providing that education anymore.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: The trickle down.
[00:37:17] Speaker D: Yeah, the trickle down.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Wow, that's horrible.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Incredible.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Thank you all so much for sharing that. I can tell how much of a difference you and your entire team made in the lives of families across the state. And we will sorely miss seeing this wonderful program come to life for Ohioans. I'd like to switch gears a little bit and talk about what resources individuals can still access for nutrition education assistance going forward. You heard Anna and Pat talk earlier about Ohio SNAP Ed social marketing, the social marketing campaign called Celebrate youe Plate. We're very excited to share that the amazing work that has been put into these digital campaigns will continue to live on with the Ohio association of Food Banks. And as of December 1, 2025, the Celebrate your Plate website will be monitored by our staff here at oaf and we're honored to be able to continue this piece of Ohio SNAP Ed's legacy and the hard work yet and the hard work that your team has put into this program over the years. I would love it if you could give us all a few highlights of Celebrate your Plate and some helpful tips that can be found on the website.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I can just start with that.
So Celebrate youe Plate is a wonderful resource. It's a social marketing campaign that was created by Ohio SNAP Ed and you can actually Visit
[email protected] Old small net and all together the website is actually packed with great resources to help families eat well on a budget, including recipes, cooking, shopping and gardening tips, plus Kitchen 101 videos and fun activities for children.
You also find helpful information about local food pantries, senior meal sites and how to apply for SNAP benefits.
With more than two easy and delicious recipes, Celebrate youe Plate makes healthy eating simple and enjoyable for everyone.
So be sure to visit Celebrate youe Plate online to explore all these resources that are available.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: Awesome. We're so excited to be able to continue that on for our food bank neighbors and for students all around the state and still be able to spread around all the amazing work, at least a part of the amazing work that you guys guys have put in over the 20 some years of this program. So we are very thankful for that and very excited about it.
[00:39:33] Speaker C: We're also very excited about that.
We are happy that it can go to a place where it's going to be utilized by the communities and I.
[00:39:42] Speaker E: Think comments from the participants that they are happy that it's going to still be there for them.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So if you see anybody out in the community community who is kind of missing that little piece, direct them to celebrateyourplate.org and they can find some healthy recipes there to help them prepare healthy meals and stretch their budget. Thank you so much for that walkthrough. Ana we're honored to be able to continue this resource and are really excited to continue offering it.
I'm sure Many of our listeners are, I'm sure many of our listeners are wondering what they can do in their communities to help now that SNAP ED will no longer exist.
Do you have any advice for how local communities and organizations such as schools, our food bank partners, and even healthcare providers can step into the absence of this program to keep nutrition education alive in our state?
[00:40:32] Speaker D: Well, in all honesty, it's going to be hard to replace the services in local communities with between 130 and 150 staff that implemented this program over all these years.
In urban areas where there's more nonprofits that possibly could provide some of the education over time and in different ways.
We have, you know, social media and online education. So some of that can be covered.
And I know some of the food banks have some nutrition education, but again, the capacity is not there there to cover the provision of nutrition education in less resourced communities. That's a different story. As Marcia mentioned, there may not be any other nonprofits. You might have a food pantry, but they may not have any capacity to provide nutrition education.
And so it really is more of a capacity issue, a content issue.
And projects like Celebrate youe Plate will help expand that access a little bit. But people have to know about it. And so that's a great thing that it'll continue going in people.
If people are interested, they can of course go to your OSU extension website. We have Family Consumer Sciences in, in many counties that can provide some. But again, we're talking capacity. Yeah, we also have FNEP does continue, but that's in 13 counties only.
So we're also talking capacity. Yeah, excuse me.
So it can't be easily replaced.
We also have 4H.
Again, they have many other things that they're doing. So some of that can incorporate nutrition education, but with a limited reach and capacity.
I'm hoping that more nonprofits will enter this space. If they can, more grants might be available to offer nutrition education for populations in the communities.
But even if, if they refund SNAP ED through the next farm bill, it'll be hard to rebuild what we have built over 30 years.
It's taken a lot of training.
It takes a lot of time to hire and train staff and to make sure that they're delivering this evidence based, high quality nutrition education programming. And so overall, it's going to be a gap, as I think Anna mentioned. Everybody's mentioned, there will be a gap in services across the state to help people manage their food dollars better, to help people make healthier choices, to help people know the skills to prepare the food to help people understand what they could pick up at the food bank that they can make work for them. So it is a challenge and it's a loss. There's just no way other way to look at it. It's definitely going to be a gap in our communities across the state.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: That really puts into perspective the amount of work that you all have put in over the decades that this program has existed. And thinking about if funding were to come back in the next farm bill cycle, it would take years and years to build up the structure that you all have built over the past couple of decades.
[00:44:12] Speaker D: And the relationships.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: And the relationships.
[00:44:14] Speaker D: We had 1200 partnerships in the state.
So every time we lost a pa, if we were missing a PA for several months, Marcia, you could probably speak to how long it took to get to introduce themselves to the long term partners and get to be trusted again.
And we would have to start that whole process all over again.
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I know it's not going to fill the entire void that Ohio SNAP Ed will leave behind, but we will do our best to reach our food banks and reach our neighbors as best we can to make sure that they have access to these resources and do the best we can to continue on the amazing work that you guys have done over the past couple of decades. So I just want to thank you all for your time today and for being our guests on Just A Bite. We are heartbroken at the loss of this program and appreciate you sharing some reflections on the amazing work that SNAP Ed has accomplished throughout the years and we'll sorely miss you as partners in this important work, but look forward to carrying on a piece of your legacy.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:45:16] Speaker C: Thank you so much, Eliza.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: Thanks everyone.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: That brings us to the end of this episode of Just A Bite. I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Ana, Claudia, Pat, Mona Lisa and Marcia for sharing some reflections from their time working with SNAP Ed and what the elimination of this program will mean for SNAP eligible families across the country. Throughout this episode, we discussed how the digital marketing campaign from Ohio SNAP Ed called Celebrate youe Plate will continue to live on through the Ohio association of Food Banks. We are honored to be able to continue providing this amazing resources to families in need across the state and look forward to seeing the incredible impact this information will have on families who need it most.
On Celebrate youe Plate, you can find anything from shopping and cooking tips to healthy recipes to kitchen safety guidance. You can also find information on other food access resources in your community.
Visit www.celebrateyourplate.org for more information. Today, you can also find us on Instagram and Pinterest@celebrateyourplate. Please see the Show Notes for more information. Although SNAP ED is no longer operating, other nutrition education programs, such as the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Education are still available to eligible participants. For more information on each EFNEP and WIC nutrition Education, visit the links in the Show Notes to find out if you're eligible for SNAP or wic. Visit the links in the Show Notes for more information.
Thank you.
[00:47:11] Speaker E: Sa.
