Sharman Charles, Elizabeth Martin, Alisha Okoro and Shatonia McCarty

Louisiana has high poverty, food insecurity and health disparity rates. According to a 2021 study from the Center for Planning and Excellence (CPEX), 1 in 7 urban Louisiana households are food insufficient. LSU AgCenter Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) personnel are striving to address food security through direct education and policy, systems and environmental change initiatives in urban parishes throughout the state.

EFNEP is a community nutrition education program with outreach efforts funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture that works through state university-based systems, including the LSU AgCenter in Louisiana. Since 1969, the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program has educated limited-resource families and youth in Louisiana, teaching them to develop skills to make healthy changes that will lead to improved diets and nutritional well-being. EFNEP partners with organizations and agencies to conduct nutrition classes with limited-resource youth, adults and families to address nutrition practices, physical activity, food safety, food dollar management and food insecurity through hands-on education. While the goal of direct education is to improve knowledge and behavior in these core areas, it is sometimes not enough to create lasting change to improve the overall well-being of EFNEP participants. Therefore, policy, systems and environmental change initiatives are implemented with partners and communities to improve health outcomes by creating opportunities for nutrition and physical activity access. Initiatives such as food pantries, stenciling projects (play spaces painted on walkways), basketball courts and other concrete spaces provide low-cost, safe opportunities for creating engaging physical activity for children. Also, community gardens and farmers markets are being led by EFNEP agents to support direct education conducted by EFNEP nutrition educators in urban Louisiana parishes.

East Baton Rouge Parish

Each parish has created rich, diverse and meaningful projects that are unique and vital to the communities that EFNEP serves. The East Baton Rouge Parish EFNEP staff have taken great steps to improve the food and physical activity environment in the city of Baton Rouge. For example, the Zion City community is a lower-income area located in north Baton Rouge that is a food desert. A food desert is an area where individuals living within a community have limited access to purchase or attain affordable and nutritious food. According to Neighborhood Scout, an online demographics database, 56.7% of the children living within Zion City are living below the federal poverty level. Realizing the need to enhance this community, former extension agent Dewanna Drewery worked with residents in Zion City to promote healthy behaviors such as healthy eating and increased physical fitness. Collaborations were developed with the LSU AgCenter, Southern University Ag Center, Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church, community residents, and the Recreation and Park Commission for East Baton Rouge Parish (BREC) to establish opportunities for neighborhood residents to gain access to healthier lifestyle options.

The largest labor of love was the establishment of a community garden. Desiring to improve the area, a neighborhood resident donated two lots for the use of the garden. The community's coalition members along with the LSU AgCenter and neighborhood volunteers developed the 2,400-square-foot garden. After successfully installing the garden, EFNEP was able to collaborate with Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church, which is in the Zion City community, to provide the Faithful Families Thriving Community program — an intervention that utilizes faith communities’ connections to church and community members to promote healthful eating, increase physical activity and improve health access. The church established a physical activity policy and a community walking program. Additionally, the Zion City Community Development Corporation became a nonprofit organization and applied for grants and funding, and the organization received an $18,000 grant from Healthy Baton Rouge to maintain the garden. Currently, a project to install much-needed sidewalks to improve walkability in the community is being explored.

Food pantries in schools are additional projects that EFNEP agents have been working on at sites where direct education is being conducted. In partnership with the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, the East Baton Rouge Parish School System and health insurance company Humana, the first school food pantry was opened at Tara High School, where 82.7% of students are economically disadvantaged. When the pantry was established in November 2023, more than 100 students and more than 40 school families were food insecure. In the year since the pantry was opened, the pantry has provided food to 165 clients in 36 households each month on average; the largest number served was in July 2024, with 214 clients and 41 households receiving food. In New Orleans, the Orleans Parish EFNEP staff led by Alisha Okoro has established a food pantry in partnership with UnitedHealthCare Community Plan of Louisiana and Second Harvest Food Bank at Village de l’Est Elementary Einstein Charter School. The pantry, which opened in October 2024, grew out of the need to address food insecurity in the New Orleans East community. There are at least four additional food pantries on the horizon in these two parishes for the 2024-2025 school year.

Caddo Parish

The Caddo Parish EFNEP team has been working with the town of Vivian for the past several years. Located about 30 miles north of Shreveport, Vivian is in the northwestern corner of Louisiana. What began as summer outreach through EFNEP programming has grown into a townwide approach to promote nutrition. Through grant funds, Vivian was able to start a farmers market to provide fresh produce, local meat and eggs, ready-to-eat food items, and artisan-made arts and crafts. EFNEP staff assist in the farmers market by providing food demonstrations that highlight produce supplied by vendors. This outreach has served as a recruiting opportunity for future EFNEP classes. In addition, an AgCenter Healthy Communities grant was secured to purchase signs to advertise the farmers market within the town and tokens to track produce purchases and to establish a children’s educational area to focus on nutrition and gardening programming. EFNEP has partnered with Caddo Parish 4-H to provide these educational opportunities.

EFNEP staff have provided multiple lesson series at a Vivian community center, a faith-based community, and the North Caddo Elementary and Middle School. Physical activity stencils have been painted at the school as a joint effort between EFNEP and 4-H. A community garden has also been established because of the EFNEP Faithful Families series.

Calcasieu Parish

In Calcasieu Parish, in the town of Vinton, Louisiana, EFNEP has maintained a long-standing partnership with Vinton Elementary School for direct education and policy, systems and environmental change initiatives. Nutrition educator Yolanda Jones has been conducting nutrition education classes with physical education students in third through fifth grades for several years. During that time, physical education teacher Homer Williams, in conjunction with the AgCenter Calcasieu Parish Master Gardeners, established a raised-bed garden at the school. Students grew and consumed the fruits and vegetables grown in the garden, which provided an excellent outdoor classroom. During the 2023-2024 school year, the school was going through repairs, and the raised beds weren’t accessible. To carry on the school garden, parents and community volunteers donated funds to purchase containers for students to continue gardening via container gardens. Through this partnership, Williams has stated that students shared that they have increased their readings of nutritional fact labels, consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables — especially during school breakfast and school lunch — and sharing of healthy behaviors with a guardian or community member.

EFNEP continues to impact individuals, youth and families through nutrition education lessons with direct education. While educating participants on the core areas of EFNEP, it is vital for the program to venture into policy, systems and environmental change projects to serve as a vehicle to create meaningful change to improve food and physical activity access to marginalized individuals, families and communities.

Sharman Charles is the state Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program director. Elizabeth Martin is an AgCenter NCH agent based in Caddo Parish, Alisha Okoro is an NCH agent based in Orleans Parish, and Shatonia McCarty is the state Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program program manager.

This article appeared in the winter 2025 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.

Rhosheca Drewery prepares to plant a mulberry branch she cut from a mulberry tree on the property of the Zion City Community Garden. Drewery has been active in helping establish a garden in the Zion City area where she lives. Photo by Tobie Blanchard

Former LSU AgCenter NCH agent Dewanna Bandy Drewery, at right, prepares chicken quesadillas while class participant Rita Thomas looks on. Bandy Drewery is teaching a series of nutrition lessons at Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church. The garden and classes were part of an effort to improve health outcomes in this under-resourced community. Photo by Tobie Blanchard

The LSU AgCenter Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) in Caddo Parish helped establish a farmers market in Vivian. Above, Leona Camel, an EFNEP Nutrition Educator in Caddo Parish, speaks to farmers market customers. Provided photo