food and nutrition service

Recently, fellow staff member, Victor Ho, and I ventured out to the Midwest Region’s People’s Garden on the west side of Chicago. It was a sunny, 80 degree day and we were ready to harvest a bumper crop of vegetables. We also wanted to check out the garden’s new wireless Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system which enabled the garden to begin accepting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamp Program) benefits—the first USDA People’s Garden to do so!

Every chance I get I try to see our nutrition programs at work to get a true sense of how we are improving the lives of millions of people we serve. While I was in Missouri yesterday, I stopped in at the Guadalupe Centers’ Plaza de Niños. That’s a child care center on the Kansas City Metro Community College campus.