Nutrition Education
Healthy Habits: Eating Well on a Budget is the community nutrition program of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Our team of culinary and nutrition professionals work directly with the Food Bank’s network of partner agencies and their guests to provide relevant, practical, and science-based nutrition information to the communities we serve. Through a variety of in-person and virtual outreach, Healthy Habits works to bridge the gap between food insecurity and health for the guests of our member agencies.
Our Offerings
Healthy Habits is currently accepting invitations to host classes, workshops, and cooking demonstrations at member agencies for guests, staff and volunteers. To learn more, contact Community Nutrition Manager, Flannery Sullivan at fsullivan@rifoodbank.org.
Highlight an ingredient, specific cultural cuisine, or let us choose a popular Healthy Habits recipe to demonstrate. These are best for agency guests who are waiting to shop at a pantry, enjoying a meal at a meal site, or at an event where a table can be set up.
The team offers many topics for a deeper dive into health and nutrition. Workshops are conducted at Food Bank member agencies. They last 1-2 hours and include:
- Food Safety: Handling food safely for the at-home chef
- Food Too Good to Waste: Reducing home food waste
- Get the Facts: How to read a nutrition facts label
- Good Grains: All about grains
- Nutrition 101: Basics of building a healthy plate
- Recipe for Wellness: Preventing chronic diseases
- Savvy Shoppers: Shopping on a budget
Nutrition education courses that last 4 to 6 weeks, for 1 to 2 hours per week. These classes include nutrition lessons, cooking demonstrations, food samplings, giveaways, and a workbook. Classes include:
- Healthy Living for Adults: Geared towards adults of any age, guests learn about health, nutrition, and eating well on a budget, as we discuss the reasons why we eat through various activities, discussions, and recipe tastings.
- Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters: Geared towards families and caretakers with school aged children and younger, guests learn the basics of a healthy diet, tips for getting kids involved in the kitchen, ideas on how to stay active as a family and food budgeting.
- Teen Series: Geared toward teens ages 13- 19, this program focuses on developing practical, age-appropriate kitchen skills. Each class focuses on a new kitchen skill paired with a related nutrition lesson that further instills healthy eating behaviors.
- Healthy Habits, Happy Kids: Created for elementary school-aged kids and pre-teens, this program focuses on creating lifelong healthy habits through hands-on nutrition activities.
- Healthy Habits, Chef’s Academy: Geared towards elementary school aged kids, this program focuses on developing practical, age-appropriate kitchen skills. Each class focuses on a new kitchen skill paired with a related nutrition lesson that further instills healthy eating behaviors. Children get a chance to practice their new kitchen skills by creating a new recipe each class.
- Learning with LANA: Our pre-school aged curriculum focuses on trying new foods and teaches introductory nutrition topics using fun, interactive lessons with class mascot, Lana the Iguana.
Featured Recipe: Fruit Cobbler
Healthy Habits Philosophies
Accessibility | Good nutrition is essential to good health. We provide relevant, tailored nutrition education, so that anyone can have the healthiest diet possible within their current circumstances.
All Food Fits | Assigning judgement to food can create disordered eating practices. A healthy, balanced diet includes a variety of foods in moderation and celebrates cultural preferences.
Health at Every Size | All bodies, regardless of their size, can be healthy. We do not focus on weight or weight loss to promote healthy habits. We measure health based on other indicators of well-being, such as diet quality and physical activity levels.
Whole Foods First | The nutrients found in whole, unprocessed or minimally processed foods are more easily utilized by our bodies. We use whole foods wherever possible over heavily processed foods.
Meet the Community Nutrition Team
Our team of nutrition and culinary professionals brings healthy habits that last a lifetime to member agencies, schools, senior centers and more.
Flannery Sullivan
Community Nutrition Manager
Flannery Sullivan is the Community Nutrition Manager at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. She moved to Rhode Island from Maryland in 2016, following her love of feeding and taking care of others to study Culinary Nutrition at Johnson & Wales University. Flannery also received a Master of Science in Nutrition Education from American University in August of 2022. Flannery completed her nutrition internship with the Food Bank in the summer of 2019 where she realized how much she loved working, cooking and learning together with the different communities in Rhode Island. Shortly after graduating with her Bachelor of Science degree from JWU, became a full-time member of the nutrition education team at the Food Bank, taking on the role of manager in the summer of 2022.
Layleen Suero
Community Nutrition Coordinator
Andrea Aguilar
Community Nutrition Coordinator
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