Koorosh Zahrai was acting Rotarian of the Day July 10th and introduced Jade Owen as our guest speaker. Jade is the Community Outreach Specialist for the ONIE Project. Her job is to increase ONIE’s presence in the community and foster collaborative efforts with other community organizations to further the reach of nutrition and physical activity education efforts across the state. The ONIE Project is short for the Oklahoma Nutrition Information Education Project, and their mission is to improve the health and nutrition of Oklahomans by creating and disseminating nutrition and physical activity information and educational activities across the state, both online, and in person!
ONIE conducts many initiatives to help make it easier for Oklahomans to choose a healthy lifestyle. Here are a just a few examples of what they do every year:
- Create quick, easy, healthy, and delicious recipes, which are distribute through our annual calendar (see picture at left) and recipe cards to schools and other organizations across the state.
- Assist farmers markets in the process of accepting SNAP benefits, and helping them grow so that all Oklahomans have greater access to fresh produce.
- Host FREE 5K Walk/Runs so that everyone has a chance to be physically active.
- Conduct cooking classes and demonstrations, highlighting the importance of eating a well-balanced diet.
- Develop online videos, blogs, social media posts and other print materials describing quick, simple tips for living more healthfully.
ONIE is physically located at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center in the College of Public Health in Oklahoma City, although being funded by a grant from the USDA through the Oklahoma Department of Human Services to share our information and resources across the entire state of Oklahoma.
Jade told the club that ONIE is currently attempting to get Edmond to allow the use of SNAP at the Edmond Farmers Market. It has generated much support but has met resistance at the upper levels of the Farmers Market Administration.