Food Hero

Food Hero targets mothers with children living in the home, comprehensively within their local community, aiming to reach mothers directly but also to reach sites within their community where they frequent (e.g. grocery stores, schools, churches, pantries, farmers markets, WIC). Setting: Community-wide, Faith-based centers, Healthcare, Retail, Schools, Worksites, Pre-K & Childcare, Gardens (School/Community), Farmers Markets Age/Population Group: Preschool, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, Pregnant/Breastfeeding, Parents/Caregivers, Adults, Older Adults, Unhoused Race: All Ethnicity: All

Food Hero includes public event components plus PSE tools. Food Hero has a website where research tested tools are housed (content for campaign participants plus educators/partners in the community kit) and a social media presence (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram) that participants and partners can access. Within Food Hero lives healthy and tasty recipes, meal ideas, budgeting, shopping, and many more cooking tips and tools to attract families to Food Hero as their 'go to' website for everything food. Congruent tools exist to work on PSE change.

Food Hero offers a variety of intervention tools, such as:  Tested recipes which follow the Food Hero multi-category recipe criteria, and a number of which have been rated "kid approved":  https://foodhero.org/recipes/healthy-recipes Food Hero Monthly Magazine:  https://foodhero.org/monthly Quantity Recipes which have been analyzed to meet USDA meal pattern requirements for schools and child centers:  https://foodhero.org/quantity-recipes . Harvest of the month per ingredient (n=65) materials: recipes, quantity/school meals credited recipes, bulletin board example, illustrations, joke, kids art, food hero monthly magazine, Pinterest board link, food holidays, videos, posters, passport, coloring sheets and hand stamps:  https://foodhero.org/ingredients Bulletin Board Toolkit:  https://foodhero.org/bulletin-boards Healthy School Celebrations Toolkit:  https://foodhero.org/celebrations Champion Award:  https://foodhero.org/award-template   Materials can all be found within the Food Hero community kit website: https://foodhero.org/

An evaluation of the Food Hero social marketing campaign found that:  More participants in intervention counties recalled the Food Hero name than participants in the control county (12% vs 3%) More participants in the intervention counties correctly interpreted the intended meaning of Food Hero compared to participants in the control county (60% vs 23%) 68% of participants in intervention counties recalled hearing or seeing at least one of the campaign messages Compared with control counties, participants in intervention counties had significantly higher confidence in serving balanced meals for their family (p=.03) and were more likely to report that canned fruit was just as healthy as fresh fruit (p=.01)  Open Access Publication in Nutrients: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/8/9/562/htm Annual reports can be found here: https://foodhero.org/annual-updates Evidence Base: Research-Tested

Based on the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework, the following outcome indicators can be used to evaluate intervention progress and success.   Readiness and Capacity - Short Term (ST) Changes - Medium Term (MT) Effectiveness and Maintenance - Long Term (LT) Population Results (R) Individual ST1 , ST2 MT1 , MT2 LT1 , LT2   Environmental Settings ST6 MT5 LT5 , LT7 , LT8 , LT9 , LT11 Sectors of Influence ST8 MT12 , MT13 LT14 , LT18

A variety of evaluation tools, including a family dinner survey, tasting surveys, and parent recipe survey, are available as part of the Community Toolkit in the "evaluation tools" section: https://foodhero.org/community-toolkit

Let's Play Bingo!: https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/success-stories/lets-play-bingo Plan, Shop, Save, Cook for Homeless Youth: https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/success-stories/plan-shop-save-cook-homeless-youth Food Hero Social Marketing Campaign: https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/success-stories/food-hero-social-marketing-campaign

Website: The Food Hero website ( https://www.foodhero.org/ ) includes recipes, tips and tools, media materials, and a community toolkit. Contact Person(s): Lauren Tobey, MS, RD Program Coordinator, Family & Community Health Oregon State University 106 Ballard Hall Corvallis, OR 97331 Phone: 547-737-1017 Email: Food.Hero@oregonstate.edu or Lauren.Tobey@oregonstate.edu     *Updated as of August 28, 2023