Nutrition Education/Operation Frontline

The North Texas Food Bank is one of the few Food Banks in the United States offering nutrition education classes. The North Texas Food Bank has one registered dietitian on staff Katherine Lindholm, RD, Nutrition Education Manager, and a Nutrition Education Coordinator, Sarah Bensinger. They work with our Member Agencies and agency clients by providing classes on nutrition, healthy cooking, food budgeting and food safety. Recipes, groceries, prizes and food samples are all provided during each class along with educational tools for interactive learning.

Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline is a national nutrition education program promoting short and long-term solutions to hunger by mobilizing volunteer chefs and nutritionists to teach people the cooking and nutrition skills they need to make healthy food choices on a low-income budget.

In September of 1996, the North Texas Food Bank partnered with Share Our Strength to provide the Operation Frontline program in Dallas. Since then, over 3000 adults and youth have received free nutrition education classes in the Dallas area.

Operation Frontline has several different curricula to meet the needs of various populations, including low-income children, teens, teen parents, adults and families.  Kids Up Front, the youth component of Operation Frontline, conducted its first class in the fall of 1998. To this date, over 53 courses have been taught and have served over 747 children in low-income areas.  From September 2008 to August 2009, 115 children participated in this six week program.

Operation Frontline is not the only service the Nutrition Education Department offers to North Texas Food Bank’s Member Agencies.  Agency employees are educated in nutrition through Agency University, and workshops for low-income adults or children are available upon request.

For more information about the Nutrition Education Department or to schedule a nutrition education opportunity, please contact the Nutrition Education Manager Katherine Lindholm, R.D., or call her at 214.431.4718.

For more information about the Operation Frontline program or to schedule a Nutrition Education Volunteer Orientation, please contact the Nutrition Education Coordinator Sarah Bensinger or call her at 214.269.8970.

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