SNAP-Ed - Growing Together MT Nutrition Education Grant

Published: 2022
By Andrea Berry

The SNAP-Ed program provided nutrition and physical activity programming to adults and children throughout Big Horn County in 2022. In addition to direct education classes held in schools and at the MSU Extension office, the SNAP-Ed instructor worked on various Policy, Systems, and Environment projects throughout the county, primarily in gardening. One project was recently featured in Lives & Landscapes magazine as a recipient of a Growing Together Montana grant. SNAP-Ed partnered with the Helping Hands Food Bank, the Farm to School program, and local individuals and businesses to build and maintain additional raised beds for growing fresh produce for food bank clients. In the second year of participating in this grant-funded project, the food bank garden was able to add rain barrels to store rainwater for watering the garden and built a spiral herb garden bed. Despite a challenging year for garden production that included a hailstorm and extreme heat, the garden beds produced nearly 150 pounds of produce for food bank clients.