Horizons Youth Services

MCDC’s fresh fruit program featured in HEALs newsletter

Muhlenberg Career Development Center Food Service Manager Larry King-Davis has made offering students wholesome snacks of fresh fruits and vegetables for afternoon snacks a top priority. The fresh fruit and vegetable snack program at MCDC, which began nine years ago, was featured in the Summer 2012 issue of Live Healthy, the Job Corps Healthy Eating an Active Lifestyles (HEALs) newsletter.

Part of the key to the success of the program was addressing the issue of some students tossing their apple cores or orange peels on campus grounds rather than disposing of them properly.  Overtime, students have come to realize that littering on campus is neither acceptable nor allowed.

King-Davis ensures that every new student knows the rules about littering and wasting food when he or she arrives on center. During orientation, he asks students what would happen if their mothers brought home some apples, and they took a bite and then dropped the rest of the apple on the floor.  The students predictably respond, “My mom would kill me.” King-Davis assures them the consequences at MCDC of wasting fruit are not that dire, but stresses that students could risk losing afternoon snack privileges for everyone if they waste fruit or litter.

After much work to change the norms, Muhlenberg JCC’s 400 students now enjoy two cases of red apples, two cases of golden delicious apples, four cases of oranges, two cases of bananas, and various other seasonal fruits each week, and apple cores and orange peels end up in the trash, not on the ground.