Food & Nutrition [Volume 16, Number 1]

              January 1986 Volume 16 Number 1
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DePository
,.his issue focuses on improving communications
:& among federal, state, and local food program man­agers.
• Examples from around the country illustrate spe­cial
projects or efforts that: • build new lines of communi­cation
among people working on similar problems; • help
people share ideas, expertise, and technical know-how;
• and improve service to food program participants by
making information mor c a~lable.
il'eamw-ork Gets Results For
ood Stamp Managers
Team problem solving is what a new
state self-help effort in the Food.Stamp
Program is all about. Initiated and sup­ported
by the Food and Nutrition Serv­ice,
the effort enables the most tal­ented
federal, state, and local food
stamp managers to work together in
helping food stamp agencies that have
high error rates or other problems in
managing their programs.
"It's the best example I know of a
federal-state partnership," says Virgil
Conrad, deputy administrator for family
nutrition programs at FNS. "Although it
doesn't cost a lot of money, we're har­nessing
knowledge so that people
don't have to re-invent the wheel to do
a better job. What better way to help a
state than to get people who are
executing the job well in another state
to become the teachers."
Every region
is involved
Each of the seven FNS regional of­fices
has organized a technical assist­ance
team that will provide help where
needed. Two of the regions are
sharing a team, so there are six in all.
The teams consist of regional, state,
and local experts, including state and
local prosecutors and investigators,
staff from state Inspector General of­fices,
and claims collections special­ists.
States contribute the time and
skills of their people, and FNS contrib­utes
funds for traveling as well as over­all
direction.
Reaction to the teams has been en­thusiastic.
"Part of the success of the
effort," says Conrad, "can be meas­ured
in the commitment of the states to
put up team members. Here are state
people willing not only to improve their
own programs, but to help others in
managing theirs."
One of the teams' main concerns is
helping states cut down on errors
made in certifying applicants and in de­termining
recipients' benefit levels.
Bringing down high error rates is a pri­ority
for many states, since they face
potential sanctions from FNS for levels
that exceed national limits. The teams
are also helping states improve meth­ods
for prosecuting fraud and col­lecting
claims for overpayments made
to recipients.
"Nationally, we've seen a lot of prog­ress
in making the Food Stamp Pro-
2
gram more accountable," says Conrad.
"National error rates are coming down.
There are more fraud investigations
than ever before. And tougher penal­ties
for violators mean recipients can
lose access to their benefits if they de­fraud
the program.
"But states have had varying de­grees
of success with bringing down
their error rates and fighting fraud. We
encourage states to go after fraud by
giving them enhanced funding for anti­fraud
activities. Usually, the federal
government pays for half of states'
administrative costs in operating the
Food Stamp Program. For certain anti­fraud
activities, we increase this to
75 percent.
"States who are using this funding
well are seeing tremendous savings.
By successfully preventing fraudulent
benefits from going out, some are sav­ing
as much as $70 for each dollar in
enhanced funding they receive from
us. Other states, however, are not
even preventing a full dollar in fraudu­lent
benefits from going out for each
dollar in enhanced funding they
receive."
Many states with high error rates
have asked for guidance from FNS.
Providing this guidance and helping
states better use the enhanced funding
is what the technical assistance teams
are designed to do.
Effort is part of
Operation Awareness
J
The teams grow out of and are part
of FNS' highly successful food stamp
management campaign known as Op­eration
Awareness. Now just finishing
its third year, Operation Awareness
has encouraged state managers to
share skills and problem-solving tech­niques
through conferences, newslet­ters,
catalogues of state and local anti­fraud
efforts, and other activities.
Through the State Exchange Pro­gram,
an important part of Operation
Awareness, FNS has paid for food
stamp managers to travel to other
states and regions to view successful
management techniques.
The technical assistance teams add
a new dimension to the state exchange
concept. "You now have a pool of
knowledge from several states orga­nized
and available to everyone,"
Conrad says. He sees the teams work-ing
as a communications clearing­house
that enables the federal govern­ment
to carry out technical assistance
in a very cost-effective, practical way.
Conrad and other food stamp man­agers
at FNS had considered the idea
of hiring a national consultant to travel
around the country and offer assist­ance.
They rejected this idea because
the services of such a specialist would
be expensive and because there might
be resistance from states to a high­level
outsider coming in to address
their problems.
Conrad is pleased with this decision.
"We couldn't have done better on the
market," he says. "The teams are peo­ple
who have learned by the school of
hard knocks how to solve problems.
They're academically prepared, but
they've also learned from experience.
FNS regional staff have done an excel­lent
job of marshalling the talent within
their regions."
The teams have achieved some dra­matic
results in the year and a half
since they were set up. Each FNS re­gional
office had the flexibility to set up
its technical assistance team in its own
way, so every team is somewhat differ­ent.
The following highlights illustrate
how the teams work and what kind of
results they're getting in various areas:
id-Atlantic and Northeast
FNS' Mid-Atlantic and Northeast re­gional
offices have joined forces with a
single team made up of experts from
both regions. The team is called
STAFF, for Special Technical Assist­ance
for Anti-Fraud Funding. STAFF
activities have generated a good deal
of publicity and interest in both regions,
and a number of state agencies have
made some changes in their opera­tions
as a result of the team's work.
For example, at the encouragement
of the team, last February local food
stamp staff from Mercer County, New
Jersey, visited Camden County's Spe­cial
Investigations Unit, which prevents
certification of ineligible applicants for
food stamps and AFDC (Aid to Fami­lies
with Dependent Children). Mercer
County staff were so impressed with
the unit, they set up a similar operation
themselves within a few months.
STAFF member John Murray, as­sistant
director of special investigations
Food and Nutrition
in Maryland, expanded on this effort by
spending 3 days training 33 investiga­tors
from 1 0 New Jersey counties in
anti-fraud techniques.
The team also helped the New York
State Department of Social Services
reach out to the county level. In Sep­tember,
all STAFF team members got
together in Albany to review the model
county anti-fraud system New York
has designed to strengthen local dis­trict
fraud control activities.
Team members heartily endorsed
the system, which is based on the idea
that food stamp client fraud is most ef­fectively
investigated and followed up
at the county level by specialized units.
Once the system is in place statewide,
all New York counties will be required
to give special attention to food stamp
claims collections and investigations.
In another area, STAFF member
Paul McCann, administrative hearings
officer for Rhode Island, visited the
District of Columbia to offer advice on
how D.C. could improve its fraud and
fair hearings system . Meeting with top
D .C. officials last spring, McCann ex­plained
how standard forms, case­worker
training, and procedures for
presenting testimony and evidence
have helped the relatively small Rhode
Island state agency process a large
volume of fraud and fair hearing cases .
Visits result
in changes
STAFF member Ralph Sullivan, as­sistant
prosecutor for Union County,
New Jersey, traveled a bit further . This
past June, he spent a week helping
work out a prosecution agreement be­tween
the Virgin Islands Attorney Gen­eral's
office and the Islands' Depart­January
1986
...
ment of Social Welfare.
Sullivan was sent to the Virgin Is·
lands because the Department of So·
cial Welfare was having difficulty quail·
fying for enhanced funding from FNS.
They had been unable to get the re­quired
prosecution agreement with
their Attorney General's office speci­fying
exactly what the responsibilities
of each office would be in prosecuting
welfare fraud cases.
The previous year the Attorney Gen·
eral's office had not prosecuted any
cases of welfare fraud, even though
the Department of Social Welfare had
identified hundreds of cases of poten­tial
fraud.
Armed with travel arrangements and
appointments set up by regional
STAFF members, and a sample prose­cution
agreement hammered out
ahead of time with regional food stamp
staffer Leonard Klepner, Sullivan met
with officials of the Virgin Islands
Departments of Law and Social Welfare.
"I explained to the Attorney Gener­al's
office how my unit up in Union
County is funded, and the various ex­penses
that are paid by FNS," Sullivan
says. "And I explained that the funding
would not only benefit the Department
of Social Welfare, but also would cover
some of the expenses of the Attorney
General's office for the prosecution of
fraud cases. I don't think they were
aware of the extent of funding that was
available."
By the end of the week, Sullivan had
gotten a commitment from the Attorney
General's office to become more in·
volved In investigating and prosecuting
welfare fraud. "I think we accomplished
a lot while I was down there," he says.
He was pleased to see follow-up ar­ticles
in the Virgin Islands press about
a new crackdown on welfare fraud by
the Attorney General's office. The draft
agreement he worked out during the
visit was later finalized, and the Virgin
Islands is now getting enhanced fund·
ing from FNS.
Arrangement works
well for everyone
John Sullivan of FNS' Mid-Atlantic
regional office Is STAFF coordinator
for his region and handles the details
of many of the team's efforts. "At the
regional office we work out the funding,
the liaison work, and the publicity," he
4
says. "The state and local team mem­bers
actually go and supervise the
technical assistance."
The arrangement, he says, works
well. "When you set out to give techni­cal
assistance, you get asked for direct
information. The state and local people
have it. The people we're helping
would rather talk to a county or state
person than a federal person, because
they have the same problems."
outheast
FNS' Southeast region has focused
on demonstrating innovative ideas In
its technical assistance effort. Many of
the states in the region are following
up on advice they've gotten from their
neighbors through the team's work.
In one exchange between South·
eastern states, technical assistance
team member Ed Pledger, deputy di·
rector of the Office of Fraud and Abuse
with Georgia's Department of Human
Resources, told a representative from
North Carolina how Georgia intercepts
state income tax refunds to repay out­standing
food stamp claims.
North Carolina's Division of Social
Services is now working on getting a
bill through the state legislature which
would allow the state to set up a simi·
The first meeting organized by the STAFF
team In October 1984 resulted In a num­ber
of recommendations for states having
problems with their anti-fraud efforts.
lar tax intercept system In 1987.
State managers in Florida, South
Carolina, and Tennessee are following
up on a claims collection system they
learned about during trips to Kentucky
set up by the technical assistance
team last spring.
During the visits, Larry Hood, head
of Kentucky's special collection unit,
told representatives from the three
states how his staff pursues collection
of delinquent and hard-to-collect food
stamp, AFDC, and child support
claims. He also explained how Ken­tucky
uses a private collection agency
to go after debts that the state is
unsuccessful in collecting.
All three visiting states plan to ex­plore
similar Ideas. As a result of rec­ommendations
from regional and state
resource team members, Kentucky
plans to make some changes as well.
To increase the amount of claims be­Ing
established, the state will be setting
up specialized claims worker positions
in more than 60 counties. J
Other exchanges
al o ucce sful
Florida's "front-end" Investigation
technique, which allows suspicious
cases to be checked for fraud before
applicants are certified for program
benefits, was the focus of a visit from
l
Pictured here are: Linda Green (left) and
Linda von Voss-Beal (above) of FNS; Paul
McCann of Rhode Island (center); and
John Murray of Maryland (far right.)
representatives from Mississippi and
Alabama . Regional resource team
members suggested the visit because
managers from the two states had
been reluctant to try a similar system
developed in California.
"We told them that Florida had
picked up on this technique and was
getting some very good results. We
suggested they go over and take a
look at it, and they agreed to do that,"
says AI Boutin, a food stamp supervi·
sor with FNS' Southeast regional
office .
Boutin coordinated a time in June for
the two states to go to Florida, and
funded the trip through the State Ex­change
Program. Bill Davis, director of
the Division of Public Assistance Fraud
in Florida's Auditor General's office,
gave them a warm welcome.
He spent half a day explaining
Florida's Fraud Investigator's Preven·
tion Project (FIPP), under which eligi­bility
workers refer suspicious cases to
state investigators assigned to their
certification office.
According to Davis, FIPP ran as a
pilot project for 6 months last year in
one food stamp office in each of four
Florida districts. Each district was as·
signed an investigator, whose salary
qualified for 75 percent enhanced
funding from FNS.
January 1986
During the 6 months, a total of 252
cases were referred to the investiga·
tors. Of these, 116 were approved, 26
were approved with benefit reduction,
98 were denied, and 11 people with·
drew their applications after being con·
fronted with the information found in
the investigation. The total savings in
actual outflow of food stamps
amounted to nearly $76,000.
Mississippi and Alabama represent·
atives were impressed with the Florida
project. Mississippi took immediate ac­tion,
making the program an option
available to counties in the state the
following month. Now more than 50 of
the 82 counties in Mississippi have ac·
cess to investigative workers. Alabama
plans to set up a similar system in the
near future.
"We should share
with each other"
Bill Davis enjoyed sharing his suc­cess
with neighboring states. "If we
can help somebody else, we certainly
want to do it. We should share with
each other,'' he says.
He is not surprised that the technical
assistance team idea works. "I've been
on both sides of the fence, and I've
found that people in states will tend to
listen to somebody in another state
quicker than they will someone from
the regional office," he says. "Now. I
don't know why, but that's just the way
it goes!''
idwest
The Midwest technical assistance
team includes staff from FNS' regional
and field offices, regional staff from the
U.S. Inspector General's office, and
the Secret Service. State and county
staff contribute expertise on a case-by·
case basis, as do representatives from
FNS' Washington office.
Team efforts got underway late in
1984 when members met with a newly
formed state unit in Ohio developed to
investigate food stamp fraud and
trafficking. The team provided informa·
tion on procedures for coordinating
and reporting on investigations be·
tween state and federal agencies, as
well as training on the investigative
process.
"Since they were brand new to the
game, they were open to all kinds of
suggestions about what was needed,"
says Liza Covlden, a food stamp spe·
cialist with FNS' Midwest regional of­fice,
who is involved with the project.
In Illinois, a series of meetings be·
tween team members and state offi·
cials helped get a commitment from
5
..
the Illinois Department of Public Aid to
pursue more food stamp fraud cases,
and from the Illinois Bureau of Law En­forcement
to become more involved in
food stamp investigations as well.
Team suggests
improvements
In Michigan, the team helped with a
broad-scale investigative follow-up to
the state 's wage matching effort. Using
a computer, the state had compared
food stamp records with Social Secu­rity
wage files and come up with a list
of thousands of people who had
earned income that was not reported
to the welfare office . Team members
made three trips to Michigan to help
state managers pare down the list and
focus their investigative work on the
most acute cases of fraud.
As the project, known as "Project
Clear, " developed, the technical assist­ance
team made many suggestions for
improvements. "The team was quite
helpful, " says Dave Wigent, director of
the Office of Systems Development
and Support in the Michigan Depart­ment
of Social Services.
"We went along with their recom­mendations
without exception because
we could see how they were going to
make the system an easier one to
administer."
The state looked at cases for three
programs-food stamps, AFDC, and
general assistance. "We ended up with
more than 6,000 cases that had re­ported
little or no earnings, and we
were finding that many of them had
earnings in excess of $10 ,000 . Some
had up to $40,000," Wigent says.
"About 80 percent of these were re­ferred
for prosecution during the first
year of Project Clear. So it's really
been a boon to our state in terms of
trying to clean up some of these fraud­ulent
activities. It also has a tremen­dous
deterrent effect on future recipi­ents
who may think about ripping off
the system ."
Through Project Clear, state man­agers
have identified $40 million in
overpayments to recipients in the three
programs they've been looking at.
They 're now involved in the second
round of the project.
Noting the extensive press and tele­vision
coverage of Michigan' s effort,
Liza Cowden says the technical assist-
6
ance team has given anti-fraud efforts
added visibility. "I think the business of
helping states is more attractive than
sanctioning them, " she says, "as nec­essary
as sanctions might be. "
'Southwest
FNS' Southwest region has used its
technical assistance team to expand
its very active State Exchange Pro­gram.
Instead of putting special em­phasis
on the team aspect of technical
assistance, the regional office provides
a list of team members and their spe­cialties
to states and encourages them
to contact the individuals for help . The
team has helped set up a number of
very successful exchanges.
One of the most successful ex­changes
to date involved some idea­swapping
between Oklahoma and
Arkansas. Knowing that Oklahoma
Bob Jackson (above) is an investigator for
the successful special investigations unit ,
in Camden County, New Jersey. When an
eligibility worker, like Cheryl Wright (op-was
looking for an error-reduction
strategy that would qualify for en­hanced
funding, FNS regional staff
suggested Oklahoma take a look at
Arkansas' Field Investigation concept.
Under Arkansas' system, when an
eligibility worker finds a case sus­pected
of being fraudulent, he or she
refers it to the field investigator sta­tioned
in the certification office for a
quick check within the application proc ­essing
deadline. This prevents errors
"up front" before applicants are
certified .
The Oklahoma staff had been con­sidering
using special verification work­ers
in their offices , but they found that
these workers did not qualify for en­hanced
funding because they verified
all error-prone cases . To qualify for en­hanced
funding , such workers must in­vestigate
cases suspected of being
fraudulent.
posite page), encounters questionable in­formation
on a food stamp application,
Jackson or one of the county 's other spe­cial
investigators takes prompt action .
Food and Nutrition
1'
Trip results
in new project
A representative from Oklahoma
traveled to Arkansas, using State Ex­change
funds, and decided to design a
project similar to Arkansas' for her
state. FNS approved enhanced fund­ing
for the new project, called Field Eli­gibility
Examiners (FEE), and provided
additional State Exchange funds for
technical assistance team member
Ann Ruffin of Arkansas to travel to
Oklahoma to help train the new
workers.
Oklahoma's FEE project got
underway in July, with five investiga­tors
in Oklahoma City and five in
Tulsa. The state began realizing sav­ings
right away-in the first 2 months,
the program prevented more than
$130,000 in ineligible payments from
being issued, and helped to identify a
large number of overpayments as well.
FEE investigators found that more than
half of the cases they looked at in­volved
false information.
Other successful exchanges in­cluded
Arkansas' demonstrating a sys­tem
that will help Texas expand its use
of direct mail issuance of food stamps
to prevent loss and improve efficiency
of distribution.
Arkansas' automated system for as­signing
serial numbers to certified mail
makes it possible to track food stamp
benefits back to individual cases. The
Texas Department of Human Re­sources
estimates the system will elim­inate
hundreds of hours of manual
effort.
Texas, in turn, provided training and
advice last July to investigators from
New Mexico's new Program Integrity
Bureau. Texas shared some of its
techniques of successful food stamp
fraud investigation and prosecution,
such as prosecutor agreements and an
automated case reporting system used
by investigators. The two states dis­cussed
the potential for future inter­state
computer matches.
('Aountain Plains
The Mountain Plains regional office,
like the Southwest, has chosen a less
structured approach for its technical
assistance team. The team operates
primarily as a group of expert individu­als
whom food stamp managers can
call on for guidance. The approach has
gotten results in many areas.
In December 1984, for example,
team members reviewed anti-fraud ac­tivities
at the Kansas state office. As a
result of their recommendations, state
managers dramatically increased the
amount of anti-fraud funding they were
receiving from FN8-from $20,000 in
1984 to $200,000 in 1985. In addition,
the state set up a unit of pre-certification
investigators in Wichita
and has plans for similar units in
Topeka and Kansas City.
In Colorado, the team suggested
changes that would enable the state to
pass 75-percent funding through to
county prosecutors. The Colorado De­partment
of Social Services worked to
get the needed changes through the
state legislature, and is now negoti­ating
agreements with all prosecutors
in the state.
Project in Utah
goes statewide
In Utah, state representatives
worked closely with FNS regional staff
in trying to find a solution to the state's
high error rate. The regional staff found
that because Utah had three state
level offices dealing with the Food
Stamp Program, there was no one or­ganization
to coordinate special activi­ties,
making change in the state's pro­gram
somewhat difficult to accomplish.
They thought a project called Project
Integrity-used by a number of states
around the country-might help. The
basic goal of Project Integrity is to re­duce
client error by making food stamp
applicants and recipients more aware
of their responsibility to accurately re­port
household circumstances. This is
done through a major news media
campaign that focuses on a joint
federal-state review of a large sample
of cases.
Using State Exchange funds, the
Mountain Plains team arranged for
representatives from Iowa and South
Dakota to go to Utah and make a pres­entation
on how Project Integrity
worked in their states. Utah state man­agers
took what they thought were the
most effective components of each
state's program and came up with their
own Project Accuracy.
Utah's version of Project Integrity
was the first .to go statewide. It enco(Tl­passed
food stamps, AFDC, and
Medicaid. FNS' regional office staff
worked closely with the state as the
project developed, reviewing materials
and taking part in training sessions for
investigators. The state's media blitz
got underway in Sept_!:)mber, and the
project ran through ~ecember.
Part of the effort's success was that
it fostered a great deal of cooperation.
7
"The offices at the state level worked
very closely on this,'' says Utah's Terry
Johnson, coordinator for Project Accu·
racy. "I think we all have the same
goals."
We$tern Region
FNS' Western regional office puts a
strong emphasis on the team ap·
proach. Although team members gen­erally
go out alone on technical assist·
ance missions, the entire group gets
together once a year to draw on col·
lective experiences in a planning and
strategy session. The regional office
directs the effort by analyzing state
problems through internal reporting
documents and federal reviews and
targeting specific technical assistance
for states.
A big success story for the region,
according to team coordinator Audrey
Lakes, has been Washington State's
progress in increasing prosecutions
and investigations. The increase is a
result of implementing a fraud prosecu­tion
agreement between county prose·
cutors and the Washington Depart·
ment of Social Services.
With enhanced funding, FNS pays
for 75 percent of the cost of prose·
outing food stamp fraud cases. The
new agreement in Washington allows
the state to pass that funding directly
to county prosecutors. This gives
county prosecutors incentive to go af·
ter welfare fraud cases, which come
across their desks for prosecution min·
gled with homicides and other more
serious crimes.
8
Audrey Lakes (above) is technical
assistance team coordinator for FNS'
Western region.
The results
are dramatic
In 1983, prior to the agreement,
Washington completed only 6 fraud
prosecutions involving just over $8,000
and only 230 fraud investigations in·
volving $36,000. Last year, with the
agreement in place, the state com·
pleted 337 prosecutions involving more
than $150,000 and more than 6,000 in·
vestigations involving $1 .7 million. "It's
really remarkable," says Lakes.
Arizona has had many success
stories involving anti-fraud funding as
well. Technical resource team member
Charlie Sharp, chief of the Office of
Special Investigations for the Arizona
Department of Economic Security, has
brought many innovations to his state,
including a project inspired by a
California program.
Last year Sharp sent an assistant to
look over the Early Fraud Detection
Program in California's Orange County
and liked what he heard about it
enough to test the Idea in a Phoenix
certification office for 3 months. The
project involved stationing an invest!·
gator in the local office to check out
cases of suspected fraud before appli­cants
were certified.
Savings from one investigator han·
dling food stamp, AFDC, and general
assistance cases over 3 months
amounted to $13,000 in actual dollar
savings. "There's no question that it
was cost-effective," says Sharp.
"We've found that of 160 referrals in
that 3 months, nearly 40 percent were
fraudulent." Sharp is working on
getting a permanent Early Fraud De·
taction Program installed in the state's
two major cities, Phoenix and Tucson.
Sharp's office is efficiently set up
with a special food stamp fraud unit.
"This makes It much easier for me to
identify for funding purposes the effec·
tiveness of anti-fraud efforts," he says.
In addition, last April he set up a
statewide fraud hotline which consist­ently
generates about 350 calls from
the public each month. FNS' 75 per·
cent funding pays for hotline expenses
involving food stamp cases. Each re·
terral is followed up. "They're turning in
a lot of information to the workers,"
Sharp says. "We're quite pleased
with it."
Team approach
Is effective
For all of these technical assistance
team initiatives, the real success lies in
getting management's commitment,
says Western region's Audrey Lakes.
"You can best do that by actually going
out to the state and presenting yourself
as part of a federal-state team, working
together toward common objectives."
"It enhances the communication
process," she says, "to start out by
saying, 'This is a benign mission. It's
not a review.' Right away they know
you're there to help them-they're not
going to get sanctioned as a result of
this visit," says Lakes.
The team concept builds on en·
hanced funding, State Exchange, and
other efforts FNS has made to balance
incentives with sanction management.
This is why the teams have proven to
be such an effective way to transfer
knowledge and why in so many in·
stances the effort has already resulted
in immediate action by states.
"We know that sanctioning states is
not what we really want to do, although
It sometimes turns out to be the bottom
line," says Lakes. "But we really don't
want to take money away-we want
the states to improve their perform·
ance. And I think the technical assist·
ance concept, the team concept, really
gets to the heart of that.''
For more information, write:
Virgil Conrad, Deputy Administrator
for Family Nutrition
Food and Nutrition Service
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Alexandria, Virginia 22302
article by Jane Mattern Vachon
'1'
Special Task Force Helps-----
J Baltimore Solve Problems
Getting back money for food stamps force member.
overissued to recipients is a big prob- "Because of the extent of the audit,
lem for many state and local food just responding to its recommenda-stamp
agencies. In Baltimore, Mary- tions was a huge job. We needed to
land, a task force of federal, state, and reorganize to accomplish the recom-city
officials has been working on im- mendations." And that's essentially
proving that city's food stamp claims what the task force did during its
system, and the teamwork has paid off. monthly meetings.
As a result of changes enacted by
the group, money collected from
claims more than quadrupled in just
one year. What's more, everyone in­volved
agrees that working closely to­gether
has improved communications
between federal, state, and local food
stamp officials.
Group formed to
solve problems
The task force was formed in June
1984, after a review conducted by staff
from the Food and Nutrition Service's
Mid-Atlantic regional office (MARO)
showed some serious problems with
the claims system of the Baltimore City
Department of Social Services.
"The review showed that Baltimore's
operation was entirely too decentral­ized,"
says task force member Jim
Goodale, chief of MARO's program ac­countability
and analysis unit.
"There were at least 22 units acting
independently, and there was little con­trol
of the claims from the time they
were established until they were col­lected.
Because we felt that Balti­more's
claims system warranted spe­cial
handling, we decided to suggest to
the state that a task force be
formed."
Shortly after the task force was orga­nized,
Baltimore's program was au­dited
by USDA's Office of Audit. The
findings, substantial in number, echoed
MARO's concerns. "The system in
Baltimore City was so unorganized that
the USDA auditors could not track the
claims through the system," says
Goodale.
According to Baltimore City man­agers,
when the audit was presented
to them, there was hardly anything in it
they could take exception to.
"It was obvious we needed to im­prove
our operation. We needed to
make some significant corrections, and
we needed help from the state and
federal levels," says Gary Balzer, dep­uty
director for the Baltimore City De­partment
of Social Services and task
A number of
changes made
The group, which consists of about a
dozen managers and supervisors, took
a careful look at the various units and
duties assigned to each and came up
with a plan to rearrange and consoli­date
them.
A standard operating procedure was
written detailing the control and moni­toring
of the paper flow, and time­frames
were established. Supervisors
were designated for the new sec­tions
within the claims unit, and re­sponsibilities
were assigned to them
and their staff.
Centralizing the system significantly
corrected Baltimore's problems. With
the system now, claims are being ac­counted
for, calculations checked, er­rors
scrutinized, accounts receivable
opened, collections pursued, and rec­ords
maintained.
. "Our automated income mainte-
At a task force meeting last fall, city, state,
and federal officials discussed improve­ments
in Baltimore's claims system. Sev­eral
city food stamp managers are pictured
nance system could identify claims, but
recoupment wasn't possible because
the number of claims was so high,"
says Balzer. "We had limited ability to
collect the monies owed to us.
Reorganizing our existing staff re­sponded
to our need for a better
claims and recoupment system."
To meet its goals, the task force
needed to do a lot of information
sharing. From dealing with the claims
system used in other states within their
region, MARO officials were able to of­fer
some valuable suggestions. The
city staff provided information on ways
these ideas could fit into their overall
operation.
"We gave city officials our ideas on
how they could enhance their system,"
says John Garrett, supervisor of
MARO's program accountability unit.
"They, in turn, told us whether our
ideas were workable.
"There were a lot of things we were
not aware of when we began. We
needed to figure out, for example, how
caseworkers would fit public and gen­eral
assistance and Medicaid claims
into their workload. Initially we were
only thinking about food stamp claims."
The Maryland Department of Human
Resources was responsible to answer
for the review and audit. State agency
here (counterclockwise from bottom right):
Gary Balzer, Kathy Lacey, Arthur Wall,
Mahfuz Maghal, Thomas Manning, Karen
Walker, and Nancy Wegman.
...
task force members provided quick
turnaround on computer printouts that
allowed city managers to monitor
progress.
Group's work ·
has paid off
.J
Statistical information more than
proves the success of the efforts of the
task force. The dollar value of claims
established increased from $500,000
during the first three quarters of 1984
to more than $1.9 million during the
same period of 1985. Claims collected
during this time increased from
$31,719 to $47,795.
In addition to improvements in the
claims system and the resulting cost
savings, there were additional benefits
that came from the organization of the
group. For one, task force members
agree that working together often
brought fast resolution to problems.
Nancy Wegman, director of
Maryland's Office of Public Assistance,
With the recent changes made as a result
of task force recommendations, it's now
easier for the Baltimore staff to collect
overpayments made to food stamp recipi-
10
says working as a task force is much
better than "bouncing back and forth
with letters and phone calls."
Diplomacy rather than bureaucracy
was the key to the success of the task
force, according to its members.
"We structured the meetings to be
as informal as possible so that we
could discuss the problems directly
with people at the local level," says
Goodale.
"In the past, we have met with state
agencies at formal audit conferences
where the findings were discussed and
timeframes for collective action set. In
that situation, it's usually a 2-hour
meeting, and a lot of correspondence
takes place by mail afterwards before
anything is resolved."
Task force meetings, on the other
hand, lasted longer but provided more
immediate results. "We sat down in a
room with the state people and the
Baltimore City staff and went back and
forth with ideas until we found ways to
ents. Here, two caseworkers from the
overissuance unit. Virginia Johnson and
Francis Jackson, check information from
the computer files.
resolve the problems," says Goodale.
"As a result of these sessions,
Baltimore City's claims processing be­gan
to take shape as a workable sys­tem
within 6 months."
Working together
is now easier
The informality of the group rested
the fears of city officials who felt they
may be excluded from the decision­making
process.
"I think that when the task force be­gan
there was an element of suspi­cion,"
says Balzer. "There was a feel­ing
that everything we did was under a
microscope. As the meetings pro­gressed,
it became apparent that the
federal and state people were recep­tive
to our ideas, and they didn't try to
undermine our authority. The federal
and state people were there to listen
to us."
Another added benefit is the im­provement
in the relationships be­tween
offices.
"This was the first time the three lev­els
of government sat down together to
look at a problem," says Goodale. "I
have seen a tremendous turnaround in
the attitudes of the people who are on
the task force.
"My staff, for example, have a much
better rapport with both the Baltimore
City Department of Social Services
and the state agency, as well as a dif­ferent
level of respect for them."
State agency staff say they are
working more closely with FNS than
they ever have. And city representa­tives
say they now have no qualms
about speaking directly to federal
officials-something that wasn't true
before.
Even though the audit is near clo­sure,
the group has agreed to continue
to work together on other aspects of
the Food Stamp Program on an as­needed
basis.
For more information, contact:
Nancy Wegman, Director
Office of Public Assistance
Department of Human Resources
300 West Preston Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
Telephone: (301 )-576-5443
article by Marian Wig
photos by Larry Rana
Food and Nutrition
-.
Mid-Atlantic Region Hosts
Equipment Conference
Helping state and local food program
staff sharpen their management skills
has been the goal of a number of tech­nical
assistance efforts sponsored by
the Food and Nutrition Service. Bring­ing
people together to share skills and
information has been a key part of
many of these efforts.
This spring, FNS' Mid-Atlantic re­gional
office (MARO) hosted a confer­ence
on procuring equipment for
school kitchens. The first equipment
conference FNS has ever sponsored, it
gave state and local school food serv­ice
managers the chance to talk di­rectly
with food service equipment rep­resentatives,
industry consultants, and
school lunch directors who have
solved equipment-related problems.
"The conference was designed to
provide an opportunity for school food
service administrators to view exhibits
of the latest food service equipment
and to learn directly from industry rep­resentatives,"
says Robert Freiler, re­gional
director of special nutrition pro­grams
for MARO.
"One of the most important things for
school lunch managers to learn is how
to develop specifications that will allow
them to get the equipment they need
without spending more than they have
to for it."
Suggested at an
earlier conference
The conference was planned as a
follow-up to MARO's successful food
procurement conference held in
Downington, Pennsylvania, in April
1983, and was, in fact, suggested by
participants at that conference.
The high attendance at the equip­ment
conference proved that the idea
was a popular one. More than 200 lo­cal
school food service people from
throughout the Mid-Atlantic states at­tended,
along with 60 representatives
from 25 major food service manu­facturers.
The conference, which was held in
Williamsburg, Virginia, featured panel
discussions on a variety of topics and
exhibits ranging from freezers, stoves,
and salad bars, to complete systems
for bLJik preparation of food.
Conferees had plenty of time to talk
with exhibitors about their equipment
needs and problems. Exhibitors and
panelists alike stressed the importance
January 1986
of properly selecting equipment.
Panelists stress
careful planning
One panel of experts discussed the
most common problems encountered
when procuring equipment. Panelists
included an equipment sales repre­sentative,
a food service consultant, a
food service equipment manufacturer,
and a local school food service
manager.
They explained how to develop
specifications and how to accurately
describe the specific piece of equip­ment
needed. They also told conferees
how they can avoid being "stuck" with
equipment th<:1t does not meet their
needs by securing detailed information
on what they need and by writing very
detailed specifications.
A panel of local school food service
directors summarized their recent ex­periences
with cafeteria renovation
and talked about how they secured
funds for their projects. This panel of
peers shared the problems they had to
deal with in order to make needed
changes. With ingenuity and some mi­nor
structural, design, and equipment
changes, they told the group, cafeteria
renovation is possible at a minimal
cost.
Panelist Sara Stevenson, food serv­ice
supervisor for the Indian River
School District in Frankford, Delaware,
stressed the importance of community
and school board support.
Lynda Baltzer, food service supervi­sor
for the Capital School District in
Dover, Delaware, described the reno­vation
of a school cafeteria built in
1922. The renovation, she said, has
not only given the cafeteria a facelift,
but has made a noticeable improve­ment
in the way students feel about
school lunch.
A presentation on planning new and
remodeled kitchens focused on learn­ing
from other people's mistakes.
Using slides, food service systems
specialist Victor Canevello identified
some common problems resulting from
errors made in planning, construction,
and design. He showed, for example,
how placing equipment just a few
inches off specifications could ruin the
efficiency of a kitchen.
Besides panel discussions on equip­ment,
there were also some special
Baking is just one of the tasks made eas­ier
in a carefully designed and properly
equipped school kitchen.
presentations. These included a food
demonstration using USDA-donated
rice; a presentation on foods of the fu­ture,
including dehydrated fruits and
vegetables; a presentation by the Dairy
Council on merchandising and using
dairy products; and a discussion on the
implementation of a school food serv­ice
program in Egypt and Saudi
Arabia.
Conference was a
cooperative effort
From the start, the conference was a
cooperative effort. Planning for the
conference included a survey of state
agencies to determine interests and
needs, and the ~genda later developed
was based on state agency sugges­tions
for topics and exhibits.
Vera Adkins, conference coordinator
for the American School Food Service
Association, shared her expertise on
planning exhibit areas. She outlined
exhibit area requirements, provided a
11
...
sample contract, and assisted in the
selection of the firm to handle setting
up and taking down the displays.
According to FNS conference
coordinator Ricli Mallam, the logistics
were complicated. "The biggest chal­lenge,"
he says, "was lining up inter­ested
companies and meeting their
needs, while complying with the re­quirements
and limitations of the deco­rator,
the conference center, and the
firm handling the heavy equipment."
Making sure tons of equipment
would be shipped, delivered, and set
up in time was just the beginning for
conference planners. They also had to
make sure each exhibitor would have
enough space as well as access to
electricity and, in some cases, water,
and they had to make sure their plans
complied with local fire codes.
"In order to pull this whole thing off,"
says Mallam, "we needed additional
wiring. Even the air conditioning
needed to be modified so that enough
electricity could be supplied." Mallam
credits the conference staff for playing
a key role in making sure everything
went smoothly.
Participants found
conference worthwhile
For participating in the conference,
school food service staff received cer­tificates
from FNS. Continuing educa­tion
credits were available through the
American Dietetic Association and the
American School Food Service Associ­ation.
These credits are important to
members for professional growth and
maintenance of their certification .
Evaluation comments received at
the end of the conference were posi­tive.
Participants felt they had bene­fited
most from the presentations on
equipment specifications, cafeteria
redesign, and planning for new and
redesigned kitchens. They also found
the equipment exhibits helpful.
For more information, contact:
Rich Mallam
School Programs
Mid-Atlantic Regional Office
Food and Nutrition Service, USDA
CN 02150
Trenton, New Jersey 08650
Telephone: (609) 259-5182
article by Carol Savage
12
NAP SNAP
SNAP Project
Catches On
In the
South-west
School lunch programs work best
when there's open communication be­tween
food service staff, parents, and
students. In the Southwest, a project
called SNAP-School Nutrition Action
Project-is encouraging open commu­nication
and helping schools make
positive changes in their lunch
programs.
The project, which began in one
school in New Mexico, is now catching
on in schools in several states, thanks
to FNS' Southwest regional office.
Project began
in Albuquerque
A group of concerned parents gave
birth to the project at Albuquerque's
Longfellow Elementary School when
they petitioned Elaine Atkins, food
service director for the Albuquerque
public schools, to make some major
changes in their children's school
lunch menus. Adkins was a bit hesitant
when the parents' demands were first
laid before her, but realized that the
motivation the group had could be a
powerful ally if channeled in the right
direction.
"Some of the changes they wanted
to make were financially impossible,"
she says , "and others just weren't
nutritionally sound . What we finally
agreed to do was to form a smaller
working group where the parents and I
would review the menus and work on
modifications. Then we would call the
entire group back together and discuss
what we could and couldn't do."
Extensive negotiations finally culmi­nated
in menus both sides were
pleased with . Some of the modifica­tions
included such things as using
whole wheat flour in all baked goods
and bread items, serving fresh fruits
and vegetables as often as possible
and, when canned fruits are served,
using those that are packed in their
own juices rather than in syrup.
Because of the success in working
with parents and making changes at
Longfellow, Adkins decided to formal­ize
the process in a project that could
be expanded to other Albuquerque
schools . She set three main goals: in­volving
parents and students; modi­fying
menus; and building a nutrition
network that could help schools teach
children to take responsibility for their
own well-being by arming them with
solid nutrition knowledge.
Other schools
eager to join
Other Albuquerque schools were
quick to join. In addition to Longfellow,
more than 30 public schools in the city
now have SNAP. To participate, each
school must set up a nutrition commit­tee
and incorporate nutrition education
into its curriculum.
The nutrition committee, usually
composed of the cafeteria manager,
the school nurse, a teacher, a parent
and a couple of students, is responsi­ble
for evaluating school menus and
making many of the decisions on what
changes will be made. Committee
members evaluate the success or fail­ure
of the changes and make adjust­ments
accordingly.
"One issue that always comes up is
whether or not chocolate milk should
be served," Adkins says.
Opinions on the subject run the en­tire
gambit. "Some people are con­vinced
that chocolate is going to ruin
us all," says Adkins. "Others are willing
to tolerate it if it's the only way they
can get their kids to drink milk.
"Many schools," she continues, "take
a middle ground and offer chocolate
milk twice a week, or so." Adkins tries
to allow the schools as many internal
decisions as possible.
"I want each school to feel that the
project is theirs," she says. "They have
to ask to become a SNAP school." The
request can come from the school
nurse, counselor, principal, a teacher,
a parent-anyone who is interested.
Motivation is
key to success
One thing Adkins and her staff
learned from the Longfellow experi­ence
was that the project works best
Food and Nutrition
J
\
SNAPSNAPSNA
when motivation is already present
within the school community.
As a result, they have relied mainly
on word-of-mouth advertising for
bringing schools into the program.
They have, however, readily accepted
invitations to speak to interested
groups, and they have published a
booklet to explain the program to
school staff, teachers, students, and
parents. The booklet outlines the proj­ect's
guidelines and contains related
nutrition information, health hints, and
class projects.
Adkins' staff includes a nutrition
coordinator who is responsible for the
nutrition education component of
SNAP. She conducts one in-service
workshop per month for food service
employees, plus two full-day training
sessions during the year for cafeteria
managers. On request, she makes nu­trition
education presentations to stu­dents
in their classrooms.
She also publishes a newsletter
which contains, among other things,
nutrition education lessons that can be
adapted by teachers for classroom
use. The newsletter is distributed to all
schools, each of the district's area of­fices,
and to the school system's cur­riculum
staff.
Adkins' staff is currently working with
nutrition experts at the University of
New Mexico on a curriculum which
Adkins hopes to disseminate through­out
the district once it has been devel­oped
and tested.
Participating schools
see positive changes
Preliminary results of a research
project Adkins conducted, again in
conjunction with the University of New
Mexico, show that children in SNAP
schools have a significantly more posi­tive
attitude toward school lunch than
do children without SNAP.
Good food and nutrition education go hand
in hand for schools participating in SNAP.
Begun in New Mexico, the project is now
catching on in other Southwest states.
The positive attitude came through
loud and clear for Jan Jones, chief of
the school nutrition programs unit for
the Food and Nutrition Service's
Southwest region, when she visited
Albuquerque for a first-hand look at
SNAP in action.
Part of the beauty of the project,
says Jones, is its simplicity. "The menu
modifications the schools are making
are quick and easy. They boil down to
simply incorporating the dietary
guidelines into their menu-planning
process.
"This is really nothing new," she
adds, "because the dietary guidelines
have been part of the school lunch
menu planning guide for several years.
SNAP, however, gives the concept a
keener focus.
"Albuquerque schools have also
taken full advantage of parent and stu­dent
involvement in the project and are
indirectly using it as a marketing tool.
The end result is increased stature for
school lunch in the community. They
seem to be reaping enormous benefits
from making a few simple changes."
Taking the idea
to the states
Jones and others at the regional of­fice
level were convinced this was an
idea other school districts could use.
They felt they could do regionally what
Adkins had done in Albuquerque-that
is, make the SNAP concept known, of­fer
assistance if needed, then wait for
interest to be shown.
14
They began by presenting the SNAP
concept to state directors of school nu­trition
and food distribution programs
and incorporating the directors' sug­gestions
into an overall project design.
They kept the three components of
SNAP-menu modification, parent and
student involvement, and nutrition
education-but wrote SNAP objectives
broadly enough to accommodate dif­ferences
among states and schools.
To help communities learn about
and use the project, the regional staff
developed a slide and tape presenta­tion
and a prototype press packet for
use by both state agencies and local
school districts.
The slide/tape series, in addition to
explaining what SNAP is, explores how
eating habits are developed and how
research is now showing that our
health may be related to our dietary
habits.
The prototype press packet provides
a sample news release, two taped
public service announcements that can
be reproduced and distributed locally,
sample fact sheets, and a few impor­tant
tips on planning a successful pub­licity
campaign or media event, such
as inviting local reporters to join stu­dents
for a SNAP lunch.
To encourage idea-sharing, Jones
and her staff put together a bulletin
called "SNAP-Shots." A concise sum­mary
of SNAP activities occurring at
the state and local levels, "SNAP­Shots"
is distributed periodically
throughout the Southwest region.
States respond
in various ways
As Jones explains, each state agen­cy's
approach to SNAP has been dif­ferent.
"Some, like the Oklahoma De­partment
of Human Services, which
administers the private school pro­grams,
liked what they saw, trained
their food service personnel during
summer workshops, and implemented
the concept with the opening of school
this fall."
The education departments in
Louisiana and New Mexico presented
the SNAP concept this spring and
summer at school food service associ­ation
conventions and other meetings
and workshops for local school food
service personnel.
The Oklahoma Department of Edu­cation
decided to target SNAP toward
their largest school districts first and, in
Texas, the Department of Human
Services saw a logical role for SNAP in
their Nutrition Education and Training
(NET) Program.
During the coming year, Jones
hopes states in the region will focus on
different aspects of SNAP and share
with each other what they develop.
The FNS regional office's role will be to
facilitate this sharing.
"One thing we hope to accomplish is
to place our school programs back in a
position of leadership," she adds.
"People today are extremely interested
in health and fitness. It's a perfect op­portunity
for school nutrition programs
to become known as a reliable source
for nutrition information and to play an
important role in combatting
misinformation."
Each issue of "SNAP-Shots" ends
with the slogan "Better Nutrition is a
SNAP." For schools in the Southwest,
it's a slogan-and a reality-that's be­coming
increasingly familiar.
For more information on SNAP,
contact:
H.H. Pullium, Regional Director
Special Nutrition Programs
Southwest Regional Office
Food and Nutrition Service, USDA
1 000 Commerce Street
Dallas, Texas 75242
Telephone: (214) 767-0214
article by C. Kay Blakley
Food and Nutrition
Newsletter Helps
~id-west States Share Information
When the state education commis­sioners
in the Midwest directed their
staff to make nutrition and fitness a pri­ority,
the Food and Nutrition Service's
Midwest regional office (MWRO)
looked for a way to help.
What they came up with is a news­letter
called "Nutrition and Fitness-
A Winning Combination." Like "SNAP­Shots"
in the Southwest, the newsletter
is a vehicle for sharing information and
ideas on nutrition activities.
"Nutrition and Fitness" is put to­gether
by MWRO's nutrition and tech­nical
services staff in cooperation with
the region's child nutrition program
staff. The newsletter features brief arti­cles
researched and written by re­gional
office staff or by state NET
(Nutrition Education and Training
Program) coordinators.
Articles highlight exemplary state ac­tivities
as well as successful classroom
and cafeteria activities in individual
school districts. The newsletter also in­cludes
a calendar of nutrition events
throughout the Midwest and descrip­tions
of available nutrition education
materials.
Format allows
states flexibility
In planning the newsletter, the
MWRO staff looked for an approach
that would allow states the most flexi­bility
in using the information. "What
we came up with," says Robert Dean,
nutrition and technical services director
for the region, "is a format that makes
it easy for state staff to excerpt topics
that are of interest to their schools."
When the regional staff finishes put­ting
together an issue of the newslet­ter,
they give each state department of
education what is called a "camera
ready" copy. If the state staff wants to
send out the entire newsletter, they
can use this camera-ready material to
have copies printed. If they want to ex­cerpt
sections of the newsletter, they
simply pull out what they want and in­clude
the information in their own
materials.
Each state has chosen its own
method for distributing the newsletter.
Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and
Wisconsin regularly reprint excerpts in
their food service newsletters that go
to local school superintendents and
food service directors. Michigan's staff
duplicates some of the issues and
sends them out with their newsletter.
Ohio also uses entire issues.
In addition to using the material in
regular mailings, some states have
also planned special distributions. For
example, when Wisconsin received the
directive to teach fitness in the class­room,
state staff included the newslet­ter
in a mailing of nutrition aids to ap­proximately
500 physical education
teachers. The Ohio staff mailed 3,000
copies to physical education teachers,
school nurses, home economics
teachers, and food service directors.
Denise Barnes of Winfield, Illinois, is
one of the physical education teachers
who have been using the newsletter
this year. She says she's found it help­ful
in her work with students, especially
since limited budgets have made it dif­ficult
to secure teaching aids even
though the school principal and super­intendent
are supportive of nutrition
and fitness awareness.
"Winfield is a typical suburban com­munity
whose school district is suffer­ing
from a lack of funds because of a
decrease in student population," says
Physical education teacher Denise
Barnes shares nutrition information
from the newsletter with principal
Joe McHaley and students.
...
Barnes.
"The school no longer has special
classes· such as home economics, so
nutrition has to be incorporated into the
health and physical education
classes."
When public attention was drawn to
eating disorders like anorexia and bu­limia,
Barnes began to be concerned
about the girls in her classes.
"Because my class is informal," she
says, "I talk a lot with the girls. I found
that fad diets were popular with the
girls and there was a great deal of mis­information
among the girls and their
parents.
"The 'Nutrition and Fitness' newslet­ter
helped me secure some really cur­rent
information and teaching materi­als.
I was able to find sources of
publications, handouts and charts, and
order them from the addresses given
at little cost to the school. I also
learned about some computer software
programs that teach nutrition
concepts."
MWRO pleased
with results
FNS' Midwest regional staff is
pleased to see that the newsletter is
facilitating exchange among states. In­terestingly
enough, the process of
planning the newsletter has also en­couraged
exchange within some
states.
"In planning the newsletter," says
Dick Gilbert, assistant chief for
MWRO's school programs section,
"the state child nutrition directors, the
state NET coordinators, and the state
physical education coordinators ex­changed
ideas with regional staff. In a
number of instances, this helped the
state staff have a more coordinated
idea of how they wanted to approach
nutrition and fitness efforts."
Since the first issue of "Nutrition and
Fitness" came out in September 1984,
there have been five additional issues,
including one this month. For a copy,
or for more information, write:
Information Staff
Midwest Regional Office, FNS, USDA
50 East Washington
Chicago, Illinois 60602
article and photos
by Mary Jane Gettinger
16
ew Training Packets FroiD 1
ew York Filled With Ideas
A new series of training packets
is helping school lunch managers
throughout New York State and may
soon be helping managers in other
states as well.
The packets , which contain informa­tion
and suggestions for increasing
school lunch participation, were devel­oped
by staff from the New York De­partment
of Education, who worked
closely with local school districts , par­ents,
and students on them.
"We initiated the project to respond
to needs expressed at the school and
district levels," says Rebecca Gardner,
who heads New York 's Bureau of
Health Education and Services and is
NET (Nutrition Education and Training
Program) coordinator for the state.
"Over and over, in workshops and
meetings, school lunch directors had
asked us for help and materials, and
especially for posters and recipes.
'Give us materials and tell us how to
use them' is the message we kept
getting from these busy people. The
kits were designed to do that."
Ideas came
from all over
The state's health education and
food management staff worked to­gether
to write and assemble the text
and artwork for the packets.
There are 10 packets in all, with sug­gestions
that can help school food
service managers promote the value of
school lunches, plan and serve meals
kids like, and make the cafeteria a cen­ter
of cheerful activities . State NET
coordinators are conducting work­shops
to help food service staff apply
the ideas in their own cafeterias.
In developing the kits, the staff drew
material from all over. Ideas for gar­nishes
were taken directly from a
merchandising manLJal developed by
eight Southeast states and distributed
by FNS ' Southeast regional office.
Other ideas were contributed by the
state school food management staff,
who kept an eye out for good ideas on
their regular visits to monitor school
lunch programs. The packet editors fol­lowed
up on these tips by calling
school lunch managers for more infor­mation
, and sometimes modifying an
idea to make it more effective or easier
to adapt.
"It's foolish to duplicate efforts when
so many excellent materials already
exist," says Gardner. "Really new
ideas are rare, but the information out
there is not always convenient and
accessible.
"These kits put information and re­sources
at the finger tips of the people
who plan and prepare each day's
menus for the more than 2,700,000
children in New York schools."
The kits come in pocket folders with
a different color for each of the 1 0
school months. The staff chose this
format to make it easy for school lunch
managers to remove and copy text and
clip art and to add material to keep the
packets up to date.
"We expect the packets to be used
selectively," says Gardner. "Some­times
school staff will copy the materi­als
directly, and sometimes they will
simply use them to stimulate ideas .
The packets are especially useful in
training new school food service
workers ."
Each packet
has a theme
"We decided to organize the material
around a different theme or goal for
each month," Gardner explains . "For
example, the first volume has a
getting-acquainted theme. Notes for
the back of menus tell students, staff ,
and parents how the program operates
and what constitutes a balanced meal.
Complimentary meals are suggested
as a promotion to introduce first grad­ers
to school lunches."
Another volume focuses on the
bread and cereal food group and offers
facts on the staple foods of other cul­tures.
This packet urges directors to
"toot your horn" during National School
Lunch Week, and shows them how to
present news and facts to the local
media and community.
Another, which encourages the use
of USDA-donated foods, includes a
special section of commodity recipes in
1 00-serving sizes. The recipes were
tested by a group of food service peo­ple
attending an institute supported by
an NET grant in Troy last year.
The group developed recipes for the
finger foods that appeal to kids today,
as well as dishes that reflect the ethnic
Food and Nutrition
r.ss
diversity of student tastes, such as
adobo, a rice and pork casserole from
the Philippines, quiche, and vegetarian
bean tacos.
Other packets suggest ways to write
and present a menu for holidays and
other special occasions, how to involve
children in decorating the cafeteria,
and how to keep their interest with
contests and prizes. For example, a
child might win a prize for the best
guess of the number of corn kernels in
a jar, or for simply being at the cash­ier's
table when a bell rings.
Each volume is introduced by a
user's guide that explains the theme
and suggests ways in which the con·
tents may be used. Among the items
included are menu layouts, models for
cafeteria decorations, recipes, gar·
nishes to make food more attractive,
and activities children can look forward
to, such as games, puzzles, and
contests.
These are three of the lively and colorful
posters included in the training packets.
They were done by children for a state·
wide poster contest.
Menu-back fillers include information
on nutrition, letters to enlist the interest
and support of parents, and surveys to
help managers find out what foods
children prefer.
In addition to special theme material,
all packets contain ideas that can be
used throughout the year. They also
include prize-winning art from the chll·
dren. "We recently had a statewide nu­trition
poster contest for elementary
students," Gardner explains. "The win­ning
posters were so fresh and appeal·
ing, we used them to illustrate our
themes. Each module contains a two­color
or full-color reproduction of one
of the winning posters.''
The state department of education
staff worked on developing the kits
from March to September 1984. In De·
cember 1984, they began distributing
copies to each of the state's 728 public
school districts and 43 Boards of Co­operative
Educational Services (admin·
istrative units that combine resources
of small school districts). Gardner
estimates that almost 90 percent of
school districts are now using the
materials.
Local directors
clo ely Involved
From the start of the project,
Gardner and the staff were eager to in·
volve school food service personnel.
After they issued the first four modules,
they asked readers to rate the materi·
als and to suggest ways to improve
them. ...
As a result of the suggestions, the
staff added more commodity recipes
and more puzzles and activities geared
to younger children. For directors who
wanted to send home to parents reel·
pes for some of the children's favorite
lunch dishes, they included recipes ad·
justed for family-sized kitchens. These
can be printed on the backs of menus
17
...
' under the heading "From Our Kitchen
to Yours."
The state staff continue to work
closely with local school food service
managers. At the request of a school
food service association or other spon­sor,
the NET staff make presentations
on the materials at workshops held in
various locations in the state. The
sponsor picks the site for these pres­entations
and invites participants.
Gordon Odermann, one of the
state 's three regional NET coordi­nators,
has led a number of these
workshops.
"First, we review the contents of the
packets," he says. "Then, we choose
an idea from one of the modules and
carry it all the way through. For in­stance,
we might choose a picnic and
talk about how to promote the event.
Without a big budget, you have to use
a lot of imagination.
"We teach school lunch directors
techniques like enlarging clip art onto
poster board using an overhead pro­jector.
We might also create a menu,
write a letter to parents, make table
tents to alert the kids, and think up
rules and prizes for a contest.
"Most directors will protest that they
are not artists. When we have a work­shop,
the first thing they do is hand the
pencil to someone else at their table.
But after they actually complete a proj­ect
together, their attitudes change."
To make it easier for people to use
the materials, the state staff included
an index for quick reference. "We
didn't want these modules to wind up
under a pile of papers," says Gardner.
Response has
been positive
From the response so far, the mod­ules
are not likely to wind up under a
pile of papers. In addition to the posi­tive
survey results, another measure of
the modules' success is the creative
ways school food service personnel
are using them.
This is evident in the materials
school food personnel bring along to
show-and-tell workshop sessions. "In
one packet," says Odermann, "every­one
receives a picture of a tray to use
in displaying the day's menu. But
schools may complete it in different
ways.
"In some, younger children have cut
18
out food pictures from trade maga­zines.
In others, art classes from
higher grades have drawn and painted
the items."
As the state staff had hoped, the
modules are being used as resources
to support the priorities of individual
school lunchrooms and classrooms.
One superintendent has already or­dered
a set so that he can integrate
school lunch activities into the whole
range of classroom teaching.
The completed project has been re­ceived
with enthusiasm by school food
workers throughout New York. Nutri­tion
educators from the six other
Northeast states have asked to use or
adapt the materials. And best of all,
more children are eating school
lunches.
"Sixty percent of all schools using
the kit have increased lunchroom par­ticipation,"
says Gardner. "We know
the modules account for some of that
growth ."
For more
information
The New York State Education De­partment
will provide single free copies
of the packets (everything except the
posters) as long as supplies last. For a
copy, or for more information, contact:
Bureau of School Food Management
and Nutrition
State Education Department
99 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12230
Telephone: (518) 474-1765
Copies of the posters may be ob­tained
from the New York State School
Food Service Association, which has
reprinted them. Five posters are avail­able,
at a cost of $2.00 each, plus
$1.50 for postage and handling.
Write to either:
Maria Riska
Phoenix Central School
400 Volney Street
Phoenix, New York 13135
Telephone: (315) 695-1516
Marcia Germaine
Burned Hills Ballston Lake
Central School
50 Cypress Drive
Scotia, New York 12302
Telephone: (518) 399-9141
article by Wini Scheffler
ancy Kay
ullivan:
Working
for WIC In
Mississippi
In Mississippi, Nancy Kay Sullivan,
director of public relations for the
Mississippi Department of Health,
heads up information activities for the
state's WIC program. Sullivan, along
with one part-time and six full-time as­sistants,
plays an integral role in
getting food help and health care to
mothers and children who need it.
WIC, which stands for the Special
Supplemental Food Program for
Women, Infants, and Children, pro­vides
supplemental foods and nutrition
education to low-income pregnant and
breastfeeding women, infants, and
children up to age 5 who are deter­mined
to be at risk because of
nutrition-related health problems or
inadequate diet.
WIC is just one of the 28 programs
for which Sullivan has public relations
responsibility. "All of our programs are
equally important to us," she says, "but
WIC is one of my favorites."
Like most government managers to­day,
Sullivan has to work with limited
resources. "There is too little time,
staff, and money to accomplish every­thing
I'd like to," she says.
But, according to John Barr, WIC di­rector
for the Bureau of Personal
Health Services, Sullivan accom­plishes
plenty for WIC. "She is one of a
kind," he says. "We're lucky to have
her."
Work closely
with local staff
Sullivan and her staff pride them­selves
on the strong link that exists be­tween
the state office, the 9 district of­fices,
and the 82 county health
departments. The cooperation and
support of the district and county staff,
Sullivan says, is crucial.
"Because of the strength of these re­lationships,"
she says, "information
flows very smoothly within the state.
Over the past 6 years, we have devel­oped
a standard public relations policy
that all local agencies use. When we
Food and Nutrition
have a message that needs to get
down to the people, we are certain that
the entire state will be blanketed with
that same message."
Hurricane Elena proved just how
well coordinated state and local efforts
are. Fast and efficient teamwork en­abled
the health department to get in­formation
out quickly to people af­fected
by the storm. For WIG, the
situation was complicated by damage
to WIG food supplies stored in county
warehouses.
"More than $20,000 worth of infant
formula was lost," Sullivan explains.
"The stock in Pascagoula was
1 00-percent condemed. Cereals were
wet and the labels had come off the
formula, making it impossible to iden­tify
the contents.
"Besides the loss of the stock, the
population served by WIG was the
hardest hit. Some Mississippi recipi­ents
were without bottles for their chil­dren;
there was no water; and housing
Nancy Kay Sullivan and her staff have a
full schedule providing information support
for WIC and other programs of the Mis­sissippi
Department of Health. Working
January 1986
was a problem for many WIG
recipients.
"Our staff living on the coast were
suffering from their own personal loss
and tragedy, but they were in the office
on the job within 48 hours after Elena
hit, ready to do whatever they could to
help the clients. The team spirit and
dedication to the program kept us run­ning,"
Sullivan recalls.
"Elena hit on Monday. On Tuesday
we had infant formula for distribution,
and by Wednesday we had issued a
press release letting participants know
where to go to pick up their supple­mental
packages on Thursday."
Materials tailored
to clients' needs
As public relations director for WIG,
Sullivan sees getting nutrition informa­tion
to WIG recipients as an important
part of her job.
"We target our efforts to females be­tween
12 and 45," says Sullivan, "but
with 9 district offices and 82 county offices,
they play a key role in getting information
and educational materials to WIC partici­pants
throughout the state.
even the 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds picking
up our materials and looking at the pic­tures
will grasp some of the meaning."
The staff works hard to make certain
that the words, graphics, and format of
the materials communicate directly to
WIG recipients. It is important that they
understand the message but aren't left
feeling they are being talked down to.
The public health staff is aiming to
change recipients' eating habits and in
the long run improve the health of their
families as well.
In their efforts to reach WIG recipi­ents
with nutrition information,
Sullivan's office has been involved in
the printing of the popular "Mississippi
WIG Cookbook."
When the book was first published,
Sullivan held press conferences in all
nine Mississippi districts to introduce
the book to WIG recipients, media rep­resentatives,
and health department
staff. County nutritionists used recipes
from the book to prepare food with
WIG ingredients for people at the press
conference to taste.
The cookbook received positive re­views
from the media as well as WIG
recipients, who liked it enough to pass
along the information they learned to
neighbors and relatives. "We're looking
forward to a revision and fourth printing
of the cookbook," says Sullivan.
Mississippi has
unusual program
A unique aspect of Mississippi's WIG
program is its use of a direct distribu­tion
system for WIG food packages.
Mississippi is the only state in the na­tion
that operates exclusively with food
distribution centers instead of giving
WIG recipients vouchers to exchange
at authorized food stores.
The distribution centers are ware­houses
located in all 82 counties. "We
hear comments from other states sug­gesting
that transportation would be an
overwhelming disadvantage for their
clients, but this system works best for
us in Milisissippi," says Sullivan.
"We have a very strong sense of
family in Mississippi," she adds. "Some
clients have to travel 1 0 to 15 miles to
get to the food distribution center, but
they work it out. Sally might not have a
car, but Bobby Joe does, and he'll see
that she gets there. We take care of
each other."
19
...
Compared to other states' WIC pro·
grams, Mississippi's food cost per par·
ticipant is one of the lowest in the na·
tion. The direct distribution of food is
credited with this low cost. Because
Mississippi can purchase products in
large volume, the state is able to get a
lower overall price than individual
buyers .
This past year, the state adopted an
"all or nothing" bid system for products,
cutting the cost of a case of infant for·
mula from $26.00 in 1984 to $14.16 in
1985. This year a case of formula will
cost the state only $11.85.
This has enabled the state to serve
more participants through WIC and
has also allowed the state to introduce
a popular new form of milk into the
food package.
Because there is little or no refriger­ation
at the food distribution centers,
dry milk and evaporated milk had been
the milk products offered to partici·
20
pants. However, once money became
available, the state WIC staff decided
to purchase UHT (ultra-high tempera­ture)
low -fat milk for WIC participants.
Sullivan was called on to help educate
WIC clients about the new product.
"We needed to explain that the milk
is fine on the shelf until it is opened,
then it needs to be refrigerated,"
Sullivan says .
The public relations staff prepared
1-page fliers on the new product for
WIC participants, and articles for publi­cation
in the journal Mississippi's
Health for health professionals.
"There's always
a lot to do ... "
Other projects Sullivan's staff are
routinely involved in include: producing
press kits for the media and informa·
tion materials for health professionals
throughout the state; preparing bro ·
chures and pamphlets requested by lo-
1
cal and state nutritionists for use in
teaching WIC participants; and putting
together slide shows and audio-visual
materials for special presentations .
They have one of the Southeast's
largest health-related audio-visual
libraries for educators.
"There is always a lot to do for WIG, "
says Sullivan. "The program people
are very creative and keep us busy. It's
rewarding to have a part in making
WIC work for Mississippi. "
For more information contact :
Nancy Kay Sullivan
Director, Public Relations
Mississippi State Department
of Health
P.O . Box 1700
Jackson, Mississippi 39215-1700
Telephone: (601) 961-4664
article by Diana Swinde/
photos by Robbie Watson
Mississippi Department of Health
Food and Nutrition
Index------------------------~
A
A Look at Three Urban WIC Programs. . Jan. 1984
A Return to Pineville, Kentucky . Jan. 1984
Alabama
Women and Food Stamps . . . . . . . . . . . July 1984
Alaska
New Age Computers Speed Certification . . . . . . Oct. 1984
States Work on Reducing Errors . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 1 984
Arizona
School Lunch Highlights from Western States . Oct. 1985
States Work on Reducing Errors . • . . . . . , . . • Oct. 1984
Arkansas
Meals for the Elderly In Saline County .... , , . . . Jan. 1986
Mobile WIC Teams Go Where the Need Is . . . . . Jan. 1984
Assistant Secretary Mary Jarratt Talks About the Food
Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 1984
B
Bank Monitoring Project Gets Results . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 1984
Building a Better Food Stamp Program . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 1984
Buying Food for SchOol Meals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan. 1985
c
California
Gray Panthers Reach Out to the Elderly and
Disabled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....
School Lunch Highlights from Western States ..
Special Help for Southeast Asian Refugees ... .
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ....... .
Churches Work Together In Vinton County . . . . . ... .
Colorado
Some Advice from Three School Food Service
Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... .
Teamwork Makes Special Computer Project A
Success. . . . . . . ........ .
WIC In Rural Colorado. . .. .. . .. . , ... .
Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP)
Truck Deliveries Make a Difference in Shelby
County . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... .
Computers
Bank Monitoring Project Gets Results . . . . . . . .
Building a Better Food Stamp Program ....... .
Computer Matching Crosses State Lines In the
Southeast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Helping School Lunch Managers Use
Computers . . . .
New Age Computers Speed Certification .
New Directions in Technical Assistance. . .....
Teamwork Makes Special Computer Project A
Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
Connecticut
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ..
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1985
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1985
July 1985
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1985
Jan. 1984
July 1985
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1984
Jan. 1985
Oct. 1984
Jan. 1985
Jan. 1985
Jan. 1984
D-E
EFNEP: Finding Ways to Reach People . . . . . . . . . . . . Apr. 1984
Elderly
Food Pantry Gets Nutrition Information to the
Elderly . . . . . . . . ....... , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Apr. 1985
Food Stores Get Involved • . .. . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . July 1 985
Gray Panthers Reach Out to the Elderly and
Olsabled . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . . .. Apr. 1984
Meals for the Elderly In Saline County . . . . . . . . . Jan. 1985
F
Florida
Reaching Women and Children Through WIC ..
Volunteers and the Food Stamp Program ..... .
Food Olstributlon Program
Buying Food for School Meals ..... , ....•....•
Churches Work Together In VInton County .....
Coordination Is the Key In Tulsa Olsaster
Operation .............. , .... , ......... .
Food Pantry Gets Nutrition Information to the
Elderly . . . . . . . . . . . , .................. .
Gene Pitman: A Knight to Remember ......... .
Harriet Moran: Indian Program Manager ...... .
How the Programs Help . . . .. . . .. .. . .. . . . ..
Meals for the Elderly In Saline County ........ .
Pam Bennett: Food Bank Director ............ .
Food Pantry Gets Nutrition Information to the Elderly ..
Food Stamp Program
Bank Monitoring Project Gets Results ........ .
Building a Better Food Stamp Program ....... .
Computer Matching Crosses State L.lnes In the
Southeast ........................... .
Coordination Is the Key In Tulsa Disaster
Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ .
EFNEP: Finding Ways to Reach People ...... .
Food Stores Get Involved . . . . .. .. . . .. . . .... .
Helping People Buy Better-And Eat Better ... .
How Arlington County Meets Refugees· Needs •
How the Programs Help .................... .
How Much Can Local Food Stamp Offices Oo? .
Making Food Collars Count ................. .
New Age Computers Speed Certification ...... .
Nutrition Educator Honored for Her Work ..... .
Putting Ideas to Work ..................... ..
Some Advice from Two Food Stamp
Participants . . . . . . . . . ................. .
States Share Ideas and Expertise ............ .
States Work on Reducing Errors ....•........
Tailoring Materials to Local Needs . . • . . ..... .
Traveling Teams In Oklahoma BrlnQ"Nutrltlon
Education to Food Stamp Offices . . . . . . . .
Volunteers and the Food Stamp Program ..... .
Wake Up to Nutrition .. . . .. . . . . .. .. . . .. . .. .
Women and Food Stamps ................ ..
Food Stores Get Involved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... .
July 1984
July 1985
Jan. 1985
July 1985
Jan. 1985
Apr. 1985
July 1985
July 1984
July 1984
Jan. 1985
July 1984
Apr. 1985
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1984
Jan. 1985
Apr. 1984
July 1985
Apr. 1986
July 1985
July 1984
Apr. 1984
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1986
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1985
Apr. 1985
July 1985
Apr. 1984
July 1984
July 1986
G
Gene Pitman: A Knight to Remember. . . . . . . . ..... .
Georgia
EFNEP: Finding Ways to Reach People ...... .
Food Stores Get Involved ................... .
Georgia Students Help Set Standards for
School Meals ......................... ..
Josephine Martin: Leader in Child Nutrition .... .
Gray Panthers Reach Out to the Elderly and
Disabled ................. . ............ .
H
Harriet Moran: Indian Program Manager ...... .
Hawaii
States Work on Reducing Errors ..... .
Helping People Buy Better-And Eat Better ...... .
Helping School Lunch Managers Use Computers .... .
Hig:-tlights of WIC History .......... .
How Arlington County Meets Refugees' Needs
How Much Can Local Food Stamp Offices Do? ...... .
How the Programs Help .................. .
I
Idaho
Illinois
School Lunch Highlights from Western States
A Look at Three Urban WIC Programs ...
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education
Making Food Dollars Count . . . . ....... .
Merchandising Plan is Key to Illinois Manager's
Success ................. .
New Age Computers Speed Certification .
Setting Up a Multi-County WIC Program
Index for 1983 .............................. .
Indiana
Pam Bennett: Food Bank Director .•...........
J-K
Josephine Martin: Leader 1n Child Nutrition ......... .
Kansas
Special Activities in Kansas Bring Nutrition to
Life ............ ..
Kentucky
A Return to Pineville, Kentucky ...
Kids Are Helping Themselves to Health Lunches ..
L-M
Maine
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ..
Making Food Dollars Count: A Food Writer's
Perspective . . . . . . . ............ .
Making Food Dollars Count . . ....... .
Maryland
Gene Pitman: A Knight to Remember.
Massachusetts
Operation Good Health •......
Meals for the Elderly in Saline County
22
July 1985
Apr. 1984
July 1985
Oct. 1985
July 1984
Apr. 1984
July 1984
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1985
Jan. 1985
Jan. 1984
July 1985
Apr. 1984
July 1984
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1985
Oct. 1984
Jan. 1984
July 1984
July 1984
July 1984
July 1985
Jan. 1984
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1984
Apr. 1984
Apr. 1984
July 1985
Apr. 1985
Jan. 1985
Merchandising Plan is Key to Illinois Manager's
Success.. . ....... .
"Merchandising" School Lunches .
Michigan
Harriet Moran: Indian Program Manager ...
Putting Ideas to Work ........ .
Some Advice from Two Food Stamp
Participants ................ .
Mississippi
"Merchandising" School Lunches ..... .
Some Advice from Two Food Stamp
Participants . . . .....
Missouri
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education
School Lunch Highlights from Mountain Plains ..
Mobile WIC Teams Go Where the Need is
N
Navajo Managers Reinforce Tradition .......... .
Nebraska
School Lunch Highlights from Mountain Plains ..
Nevada
States Work on Reducing Errors .. . .
New Age Computers Speed Certification .. .
New Directions in Technical Assistance .. .
New Hampshire
Second Graders Serve Up an "Awesome"
Lunch..... . ........... .
New Jersey
Making Food Dollars Count ....... .
New Jersey Schools Make Eating Lunch Some-thing
Special ....................... .
New Mexico
Making Food Dollars Count .............. .. . .
Mobile WIC Teams Go Where the Need Is .. .
Tailoring Materials to Local Needs ....
North Carolina
Teamwork Helps Prevent Vendor Abuse
Women and Food Stamps ....
North Dakota
New Age Computers Speed Certification ..
Nutrition Education
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ..
EFNEP: Finding Ways to Reach People ..
Food Pantry Gets Nutrition Information to the
Elderly ........... ..
Gray Panthers Reach Out to the Elderly and
Disabled.. . ............ .
Helping People Buy Better-And Eat Better .
How Much Can Local Food Stamp Offices
Do?. . ........ .
Making Food Dollars Count . . . . . . ... .
Making Food Dollars Count: A Food Writer's
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . ...
Nutrition Educator Honored for Her Work ... .
Operation Good Health ................. .
School Lunch in Memphis is a Community
Affair. . . . . . . . . . ...................... .
Some Advice from Two Food Stamp
Participants ..
Special Activities in Kansas Bring Nutrition to
Life.... . . . . . . . .. .. ........ .
Special Help for Southeast Asian Refugees .
Tailoring Materials to Local Needs ........... .
Traveling Teams in Oklahoma Bring Nutrition
Education to Food Stamp Offices .
Wake Up to Nutrition . . . . . . . . . . .
WIC Celebrates Its Tenth Anniversary , ....
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1985
July 1984
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1984
Jan. 1985
Apr. 1984
Jan. 1984
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
Oct. 1985
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1984
Jan. 1985
Oct. 1985
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1985
Apr. 1984
Jan. 1984
Apr. 1985
Jan. 1984
July 1984
Oct. 1984
Jan. 1984
Apr. 1984
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Apr. 1985
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Apr. 1984
Apr. 1984
Apr. 1985
Apr. 1985
July 1985
Apr. 1984
July 1985
Apr. 1984
Apr. 1985
Apr. 1985
Apr. 1984
Jan. 1984
Food and Nutrition
0
Ohio
A Look at Three Urban WIG Programs ..
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ..
Churches Work Together in Vinton County .....
Food Pantry Gets Nutrition Information to the
Elderly . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... .
Some Advice from Three School Food Service
Stars ........ .
Working in the Community ..... .
Oklahoma
Coordination is the Key in Tulsa Disaster
Operation ........... .
Making Food Dollars Count ............. .
Traveling Teams in Oklahoma Bring Nutrition
Education to Food Stamp Offices ..
Operation Awareness
Building a Better Food Stamp Program .
States Share Ideas and Expertise ..
Operation Goop Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Oregon
School Lunch Highlights from Western States ..
p
Pam Bennett: Food Bank Director.
Putting Ideas to Work .....
Q-R-S
Quality Comes First for San Antonio-From Start to
Finish . . . ........ .
Questions and Answers on WIG . . . . . . . . . . ..
Reaching Women and Children Through WIG ....... .
School Lunch Program
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
July 1985
Apr. 1985
Oct. 1985
July 1984
Jan. 1985
Apr. 1984
Apr. 1985
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1985
Oct. 1985
July 1984
Oct. 1984
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1984
July 1984
Buying Food for School Meals. Jan. 1985
Georgia Students Help Set Standards for School
Meals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 1985
Helping School Lunch Managers Use
Computers... . . . . . . . . . . ....... .
How the Programs Help .................... .
Josephine Martin: Leader in Child Nutrition .. . . .
Kids Are Helping Themselves to Healthy
Jan. 1985
July 1984
July 1984
Lunches . . . . . .. . . . .. . . .. .. . .. . . .. . . . . .. Oct. 1985
Merchandising Plan is Key to Illinois Manager's
Success . .. . . . . .. .. . . .. . . .. . . .. .. . . .. Oct. 1985
"Merchandising'' School Lunches . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan. 1985
New Jersey Schools Make Eating Lunch
Something Special . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 1985
Operation Good Health...... .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . Apr. 1985
Quality Comes First for San Antonio-From
Start to Finish ......................... .
School Lunch Highlights from Mountain Plains ..
School Lunch Highlights from Western States ..
School Lunch in Memphis is a Community
Oct. 1985
Oct. 1985
Oct. 1985
Affair............. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 1985
Second Graders Serve Up an "Awesome"
Lunch .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. Oct. 1985
Some Advice from Three School Food Service
Stars . • . .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. Oct 1985
Special Activities in Kansas Bring Nutrition to
Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... ·
Teamwork Makes Special Computer Project A
Success .............................. .
Winning with School Lunch .................. .
Sharing Skills and Technology ..................... .
Second Graders Serve Up an "Awesome" Lunch ..... .
Setting Up a Multi-County WIG Program ............ .
Some Advice from Three School Food Service Stars ..
January 1986
July 1985
Jan. 1985
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1985
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1984
Oct. 1985
Some Advice from Two Food Stamp Participants
Special Help for Southeast Asian Refugees .....
South Carolina
Kids Are Helping Themselves to Healthy
Lunches.... . ............. .
Special Activities in Kansas Bring Nutrition to Life ....
Special Supplemental Food Program for Women,
Infants, and Children (WIG)
A Look at Three Urban WIG Programs.
A Return to Pineville, Kentucky .............. .
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ..
Highlights of WIG History ..
How the Programs Help ............ .
Mobile WIG Teams Go Where the Need Is .....
Navajo Managers Reinforce Tradition
Questions and Answers on WIG .... . ... .
Reaching Women and Children Through WIG
Setting Up a Multi-County WIG Program .
Teamwork Helps Prevent Vendor Abuse.
WIG Celebrates Its Tenth Anniversary .. .
States Share Ideas and Expertise ............ .
States Work on Reducing Errors ................... .
T
Tailoring Materials to Local Needs ....... .
Teamwork Helps Prevent Vendor Abuse .... .
Teamwork Makes Special Computer Project A
Success...... . ....... .
Tennessee
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ..
New Age Computers Speed Certification ...... .
Nutrition Educator Honored for Her Work ..... .
School Lunch in Memphis is a Community
Affair... . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ .
Some Advice from Three School Food Service
Stars.. .. ............ ..
Truck Delivenes Make a Difference in Shelby
County ............. .
Texas
Apr. 1984
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1985
July 1985
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
July 1984
Jan. 198~
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
July 1984
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
Oct. 1984
Oct 1984
Apr. 1985
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1985
Jan. 1984
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1985
July 1985
Oct. 1985
July 1985
Mobile WIG Teams Go Where the Need Is . . . . . Jan. 1984
Quality Comes First for San Antonio-From Start
Start to Finish . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... .
Tips from the "Greengrocer" ......... .
Traveling Teams in Oklahoma Bring Nutrition
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1985
Education to Food Stamp Offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . Apr. 1985
Truck Deliveries Make a Differenc~ in Shelby County.. July 1985
U-V-W
Virginia
Changing Habits Through Nutrition Education ..
How Arlington County meets Refugees' Needs .
Volunteers
Churches Work Together in Vinton County ..
Gene Pitman: A Knight to Remember ......... .
Volunteers and the Food Stamp Program ..... .
Wake Up to Nutrition ....................... .
Washington State
School Lunch Highlights from Western States ..
States Work on Reducing Errors • . . . . . . . . . .
West Virginia
Wake Up to Nutrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... .
WIG Celebrates Its Tenth Anniversary ...... .
WIG in Rural Colorado . . . . . . . . . ............ .
Winning with School Lunch ........................ .
Women and Food Help ........................... .
Women and Food Stamps ........................ .
Working in the Community ............. • ....... .
Wyoming
School Lunch Highlights from Mountain Plains ..
Teamwork Makes Special Computer Project A
Success ............................ ..
Jan. 1984
July 1985
July 1985
July 1985
July 1985
Apr. 1984
Oct. 1985
Oct. 1984
Apr. 1984
Jan. 1984
Jan. 1984
Oct. 1985
July 1984
July 1984
July 1984
Oct. 1985
Jan. 1985
23
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
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John R. Block
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