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AUNI Mission
The Urban Nutrition Initiative (UNI) is a university-community partnership that engages K-16+ learners in an active, real-world problem-solving curriculum that strives to improve community nutrition and wellness.
Goals
- Create and sustain an interdisciplinary K through 16+ curriculum that engages students as agents of school and community health improvement and simultaneously results in increased educational skills and abilities.
- Work with university faculty, students, public school teachers and community residents to realize schools as centers of community health promotion; places where active, healthy lifestyles are an integral part of education.
- Advance an ecological approach to nutrition education that emphasizes the interdependence of food, environment and human health through growing, cooking, eating and selling healthy foods.
UNI programs fall into three general categories:
- Increasing food and nutrition knowledge.
- Increasing the supply of healthy foods.
- Encouraging and supporting active lifestyles.
UNI programs include:
- Food and nutrition lessons integrated within the school-day curriculum (social studies, science, language arts and math).
- Lunch period hands-on healthy cooking classes.
- After school fruit and vegetable stands.
- After school and summer job training in: urban agriculture, entrepreneurship and peer education.
- Farmers' markets open on Saturdays and Wednesdays, May through November.
- School-based gardens.
- Community fitness and health programs (free to parents and community members).
UNI strives to serve as a model for effective school-based health promotion programs that can be adopted and adapted to meet the needs of schools and communities around the world.
UNI is directed by Danny Gerber. Dr. Francis Johnston and Dr. Fran Barg serve as faculty advisors and each year teach service-learning courses linked to UNI's operations in West Philadelphia schools and communities. Dr. Ira Harkavy, Director of Penn's Center for Community Partnerships, and Cory Bowman help coordinate Penn resources that support the overall effort and serve as liaisons to the School District of Philadelphia. The WPP serves as an advisor for UNI's Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Plan grant, designed to incorporate nutrition education into the workings of public schools in West Philadelphia.
UNI is funded through a combination of public and private donors. Its funders include the Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Plan (PA NEP), the National Institute of Health (NIH), STEPS Philadelphia, Edward and Barbara Netter, the Holborn Foundation, and the Tuttleman Foundation. In the past, UNI has been funded by the USDA Community Food Project. |
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Upcoming Events & AUNI News:
Bowling for Broccoli Fundraiser
Saturday, May 31, 2008
7:00 - 11:00 pm
St. Monica Lanes
1601 Shunk Street
Philadelphia, PA 19145
Tickets - $25 per person
Call Karen @ (215)898-1600 |
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