Michelle Obama's Pass the Love Campaign: A Focus on Health Equality

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Fresno County was thrilled to be chosen as one of five cities to receive free healthy meals through Michelle Obama’s Pass the Love Campaign.

Michelle Obama’s mission is to distribute 1 million meals to families across the country, starting with five cities. Her Netflix show “Waffles & Mochi” was a huge inspiration for making healthy eating and healthy cooking fun and her relationship with Partnership for Healthier America executed the plan.

“We want to make sure everyone can discover new foods and explore the kitchen together just like my friends, Waffles and Mochi,” says Michelle.

If you have been watching the news, or scrolling through Facebook, you know the pandemic has been particularly hard for low income families. Food insecurity has been a major problem in America for some time and organizations like Partnership for Healthier America are doing something about it. They believe food equality is health equality.

On January 18th, we received our first shipment of Pass the Love boxes and bags. Each box contained healthy recipes for families to cook together and dry foods like; garbanzo beans, black beans, canned tomatoes, pita bread, and spices. Each bag contained fresh produces like; celery, cilantro, potatoes, low-fat mayonnaise, sweet potatoes, garlic, rosemary, and onions.

Thanks to California Food Bank, distributing to our 15 Clubs across Fresno County was easy. As a team, we helped feed over 500 families during the first week. Four shipments of Pass the Love food is scheduled to be dropped off at the Boys & Girls Clubs.

“What’s unique about this opportunity is that these meals align with our Healthy Habits Program and continue to teach young people how to select, cook, and eat healthy meals,” said Maria Garcia, Director of Operations, “The original plan was for the Clubs to simply distribute the boxes of food to the families but I offered to have our staff utilize 1-2 boxes and teach the youth how to cook while watching the Netflix videos. This way members would be more willing to cook the meals at home.”

It’s moments like this and caring adults like these that help build Great Futures.

STORY UPDATE:

2,500 families were provided with healthy meals and recipes for 4 weeks in Fresno County because of this incredible campaign. Michelle Obama exceeded her mission to feed to over 1 million families in the United States. Hear a statement from Michelle Obama.