C IVIC E NGAGEMENT P ROJECT By: Katie Bulian

M Y A GENCY My agency is homemakers and kaleidoscope. They are an after school program for low income children at North Elementary School. Their mission: Their mission is to created to provide fun and enriching activities for children after school, to aid parents who have responsibilities outside of the home, who cannot be home when school is dismissed, and to provide a safe place for children to go.

T HE A FTER S CHOOL P ROGRAM The after school program did not have any problems with providing nutritious snacks for the kids. The snacks include: Baked goldfish Nutrigrain bars Cereal And a choice of juice, low fat chocolate milk, and 2% or low fat regular milk BUT all of the snacks provided were packaged snacks

M Y P LAN OF A CTION Since all of the snacks were packaged snacks, I planned to provide a healthy snack that the kids could make themselves. I had the children make ants on a log and trail mix.

A NTS ON A L OG Ingredients: Celery Low fat peanut butter or low fat cream cheese Raisins Since there is a new rule in schools that nuts are not allowed because of all of the nut allergies that the children have, I brought in low fat cream cheese.

Ants on a Log Continued… I gave the kids a portion cup filled with cream cheese, 2 pieces of celery, a small box of raisins, and popsicle sticks for spreading the cream cheese. How to make: Take a piece of celery and spread the cream cheese on the celery stick. Then you stick the raisins to the cream cheese to make it look like there are ants on a log. It does get a little messy, but the kids really enjoyed it!

T RAIL M IX Ingredients: You can use: A variety of nuts A variety of pretzels or cereal and granola bites Or a variety of dried fruit Once again, since they are not allowed to have nuts I brought in different kinds of dried fruit.

Trail Mix Continued… I gave each kid a hand full of dried apples, bananas, mangos, raisins, and a small plastic bag, so they could combine their choice of dried fruit together and take home to their parents if they would like to. How to make: Choose different kinds of dried fruit and combine them together and mix it up.

M Y P LANNED O UTCOME I planned on finding out what my outcome would be by doing a survey a week or two later to see if they made either or both of the snacks at home. I planned on having 30% or more of the kids report to me that they have made at least one of the snacks at home with parents or legal guardians.

M Y O UTCOME Two weeks after the activity I did with the kids I asked who made one or both of the snacks at home. I did this by having the kids raise their hands. I found that around 25% of the kids reported that they did make at least one of the snacks at home with an adult.

My Outcome Continued… Most of them said they ate dried fruit, so I am not sure if they actually made the tail mix or not. Only a few of the kids reported that they made ants on a log, but the ones who did explained that they used peanut butter and liked it better than the cream cheese.