Spoons Across America
The Recipe for Healthier Children
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Parents and educators are in need of children’s nutrition curriculum and basic access to food knowledge that is necessary for children to make healthful choices. A propensity among children to select nutrient-poor foods due to the proliferation of fast-food businesses in their communities. Only 40 percent of families eat dinner together. Parents and their children need to be reminded of the benefits received when they connect during mealtime.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Spoons Food Explorers
Spoons Food Explorers - a program for 1st graders in which they will actively explore a variety of fresh, healthy foods using all their senses - sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste.
Farm to Book
Farm to Book – for 2nd graders gives children an in-depth opportunity to explore both new and unfamiliar tastes and flavors, and learn about the source of their food – how it is produced, grown, and transported from farm to table.
Take A Taste with Spoons
Take A Taste with Spoons – for 3rd graders gives children the opportunity to delve deeper into the discovery of taste, develop an increased vocabulary around food and flavor, learn more specific information about nutrition and healthy choices, and make some simple recipes.
Spoons Recipe Days
Spoons Recipe Days – for 4th graders. Each session focuses upon a selected theme and recipe that encourages children to use their food discovery skills and developing food curiosity, honed in our 2nd and 3rd-grade programs, to explore more complex flavors, recipes, and concepts.
The Dinner Party Project
The Dinner Party Project – for 5th graders, where children refine taste concepts and expand their understanding of nutrition, food safety, meal-planning, table-setting, and cooking. In the process, these adventurous food-explorers, with increasingly developed taste vocabulary, now also explore concepts such as media literacy, food advertisers’ claims, and the difference between a “diet” and a “healthy diet.”
The Food Exploration Project
The Food Exploration Project
This eight-session food and nutrition literacy program for 1st through 6th-grade students brings together highlights from Spoons Across America’s current school-based programs from each grade. Hands-on activities include opportunities to taste new and familiar foods, learn about where food comes from via picture books, develop age-appropriate nutrition and cooking skills, make simple recipes, and have fun while learning about the importance of balanced and healthy eating.
The Food Explorers Wellness Fair
The Food Explorers Wellness Fair is a one-day activity packed fair for children to explore elements of taste, food groups, food sourcing, and to learn how to make healthy food choices.
At the fair, children become “Food Explorers” as they journey through five stations and learn about each topic through hands-on and physical activities. Once children arrive at the fifth and final station, children will receive a Food Explorers kit to encourage children to continue learning at home.
Where we work
External reviews
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Our approach to food education benefits children's education on a holistic scale: our programs teach critical thinking and reasoning skills, and develop a curiosity about new foods and experiences, shaping how students view and interact with the world around them. These children experience learning transfer, or the ability to take what they learn in our programs and apply it to other topics and themes in the classroom. The confidence and reasoning abilities they develop when learning about nutrition can help them excel inside and outside the classroom. By giving children the tools and knowledge necessary to make smarter, healthier decisions about their food, Spoons Across America cultivates traits that will have a lasting impact on their education for the rest of their lives.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Spoons Across America programs are taught by trained educators who compliment the traditional classroom setting by integrating interactive and fun-filled lessons with sensory exploration and hands-on discovery for each child. Our team of educators and volunteers instill the curiosity and confidence in school-aged children, giving them the tools to become food explorers for life. By working in the classroom, our programs position children's education at the heart of our efforts: programs are designed to include curricula elements for STEM and CORE requirements and are tailored to the lesson plans and themes of the school year. Connecting directly to the classroom makes our programs “add-ins" rather than “add-ons" for schools' lesson plans and programming..
Meticulously developed, critiqued, and improved throughout our 16 year history, our implementation model prioritizes progressive and methodical programming to give children the full impact of our five years of classes. When we bring our programs to a school, we begin with one full year of our first year program, and each successive year sees the next level of programming introduced, until the school reaches full saturation of our curricula. Children receive the full complement of our programs, and continuously build on the skills and knowledge they gain each year. By implementing programs one year at a time, Spoons Across America insures that children receive the full breadth of programs..
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Spoons Across America has been implementing food and nutrition literacy programs for over 15 years. We have a successful relationship with NYC public school teachers and administrators, allowing the smooth implementation of programs. The Director of Programs and Partnerships has direct oversight of all Spoons Across America programs. She was the principal writer and creator of our food literacy and nutrition programs, and has been involved in the implementation of our programming for since 2007. She has a Masters in Education, and experience cooking professionally. Our Food Educators have several years of experience working with our organization, and have are working towards degrees in nutrition and food studies.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Since our founding in 2001, Spoons Across America's progressive programming has provided over 25,000 children with the opportunity to smell, taste and talk about new and unfamiliar foods, and to develop curiosity about unfamiliar healthy foods, and make better choices about what they eat. As of the Fall of 2017, we will have implemented our Food Literacy and Nutrition education programming in an unprecedented strength for our organization's history. Every year, Spoons Across America has steadily written food literacy and nutrition program materials that provide children with consecutive years of nutrition and food literacy classes.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Spoons Across America
Board of directorsas of 09/11/2023
Jeff Bank
Lynda Dias
Jeffry Haber
Reuel M. Jordan
Jeff Bank
Richard Mandell
Marisa Colaneri
David Curtis
Rachelle Parker
David Finkel
Katherine Boulud
Salvatore Rizzo
Lauren Amanda Adler
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes