Dole Packaged Foods, The Boys & Girls Club of Central Mississippi and Merced County, Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation and the Partnership for a Healthier America

Is it possible for 10-year-olds to become ambassadors for healthy eating in their communities?  The Boys and Girls Clubs of Jackson, MS, and Merced County, CA, think so.  With new programs piloting in these two cities that are strikingly similar, yet worlds apart, kids are getting the chance to learn cooking skills using healthy recipes. To make it even easier, the healthy foods are readily accessible in the “Good Stuff Kiosk” for parents to buy the ingredients for cooking the meal at home—the icing on the cake is that it also brings families together.

Merced County has a largely Hispanic population, while Jackson has a largely Black population, both with high obesity rates. While it is hard to imagine people experiencing hunger in America where there seems to be an abundance of food, the toll of hunger and food insecurity disproportionately impact underserved communities, communities of color, low-income families and rural Americans. There are generally food access issues, where there isn’t a grocery store in proximity and healthy foods, like fruit and vegetables, are costly for many families. So, it is not surprising that we see high rates of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease in these communities. But now there is a group of partners ready to change that.

“Fifty percent of our children in Merced County are overweight or obese,” said See Lee, CEO of the Merced County Boys and Girls Club. “We knew if we didn’t address their physical health first then they wouldn’t be around long enough to grow up and enjoy a successful life.”

The Dole®  Packaged Foods sponsored KIDS COOKING CAMP classes in Jackson, which are made up of girls and boys of all ages, teaches cooking and baking with healthy recipes that increase intake of fruits and veggies, and makes it easy for the kids to bring recipes home that the families can make together. Dole’s Sunshine for All Cities program has been transformative by providing the chefs, cooking equipment and food needed to teach the kids and get them excited about cooking, which is no small feat. 

“Generally, in the inner-city communities, cooking isn’t something they have time to do. The single parents opt to pick up fast food every night—it is cheap and easy,” said Nichole Mooney, Founder of Black Girls Cook who is working with the Sunshine for All® Cities program at the Boys and Girls Club in Baltimore. “The kids are able to take the recipes home and it teaches them about being mindful about eating fast food or salt intake, this helps develop their skills as they age and may be at higher risk for chronic diseases.”

We know that healthier foods are generally more expensive and maybe not as easy to access for people living in these communities, so where does the healthy food come from? Enter Partnership for Healthier America and the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation. These organizations are invested in giving and creating equitable access to nutritious food, particularly for families in underserved communities.  Both of these organizations recognized the progress and change the Dole’s Sunshine for All® Cities program is delivering. From the KIDS COOKING CAMP classes in Jackson, Baltimore and Merced to the Good Stuff Kiosk pilot programs in Boys and Girls Clubs in Jackson and Merced providing healthy foods at lower cost, countless people are encouraged and hopeful that change is possible. The kids are learning healthy recipes in cooking class and when parents pick up their kids, they have the access to the kiosk to buy all the foods needed to bring it home to cook together.

The Sunshine for All® Cities program has exceeded everyone's expectations. The opportunity to potentially install Good Stuff Kiosks in over 5,000 Boys & Girls Clubs has the potential to provide access to healthy foods for millions of kids and families throughout the country. And, partnerships have been key to making this program a success. Additional grants from the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation make this an excellent example of how working together to empower youth and their families with access to good nutrition, as well as access to knowledge, resources and skills to generate brighter futures.

“The program is an ambitious, coordinated, national effort designed to create sustainable solutions to address the health and wellness inequities that face countless kids and families every day,” said Barbara Cocks, executive director, Dole® Packaged Foods Sunshine for All® Cities Program.

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For more information about these organizations, please visit:

Sunshine For All Cities

Good Stuff Store

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About the Commitment

Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi commits to expanding on the Good Stuff Kiosk program, launched as a pilot in Jackson, MS and Planada, CA. Funded by the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation and Dole Packaged Foods, the Good Stuff Kiosk has an assortment of key staple items, both shelf-stable and refrigerated, priced for families in under resourced communities, located at community hubs where they're already going to pick up children from after school activities, and combined with nutrition skill education through cooking classes and recipes and cooking tips from a website featured on the Kiosk. We will pilot additional Kiosks in the coming year, connect families with nearly 3 million additional servings in 2024, and expand to additional Boys & Girls Clubs locations. Further expanding the commitment, we will begin piloting the Good Stuff Kiosk at convenience stores in an attempt to reach families through the more than 150,000 convenience stores in the US. Beginning with a convenience store chain of around 150 stores in 2024, we'll learn and scale the program to reach 6.6 million families by 2028 providing a billion more servings in some of the same under resourced communities we're already working in. Based on learnings to date, this commitment overall could add more than 4.2 billion servings of healthy food to the food system by the end of 2028.