Brighter Bites, a Houston-based nonprofit providing under-resourced families with fresh produce and nutrition education, has received a $300,000 Empowering Health grant from UnitedHealthcare to expand its programming into San Antonio. This generous funding will help serve areas with high rates of food insecurity and diet-related diseases in the San Antonio area by providing fresh produce and comprehensive nutrition education to children and families.
“Through our Empowering Health grants and local outreach efforts from UnitedHealthcare, we’re working with local organizations in the state to provide Texans with an interconnected system of clinical and social services that can produce better lifestyle outcomes and make the health system work better for everyone,” said Don Langer, CEO, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Texas.
Since launching its Empowering Health commitment in 2018, UnitedHealthcare has now invested more than $51 million in grants reaching more than 8 million people through partnerships with community-based organizations like Brighter Bites in 30 states and the District of Columbia.
“We are very grateful to be awarded this grant from UnitedHealthcare,” said Rich Dachman, CEO of Brighter Bites. “These funds along with the support of our various partners will allow us to empower more children and their families in San Antonio to make healthier food choices that will in turn enable the health and wellbeing of its community.”
Since launching in 2012, Brighter Bites has distributed more than 50 million pounds of produce and hundreds of thousands of nutrition education materials to over 500,000 individuals through schools, after-school programs and summer camps in the cities in which it serves. Brighter Bites uses a simple formula for introducing healthy lifestyles to families: produce distribution, nutrition education and a fun food experience that helps to demystify produce and show how great it can taste.
For more information:
Jessica Schneider
Brighter Bites
jschneider@dma-solutions.com
https://brighterbites.org/