Tucson Family Food Project tackles local hunger | News

Food insecurity throughout the country runs rampant. A few contributing factors to the growing issue include the lack of healthy food options and government support, as well as limited nutrition education and poverty. In the Tucson area, the Tucson Family Food Project (TFFP) is currently working on shifting the way food insecurity affects childhood for the city’s school-aged kids through a new, revolutionary approach.

Food insecurity can affect a child’s entire life. When a child is not given the proper nutrition to fuel their brain, they suffer from lower nutrient intake, anxiety, aggression, cognitive issues, obesity, anemia and chronic illness. Not only can these problems affect a child’s life into adulthood, but the lack of nutrition has devastating effects on a child’s educational experience. Children who experience food insecurity are more likely to repeat a grade, be suspended, have higher absence rates, perform worse on standardized testing, and may have limited opportunities for long-term academic success.

Steven Cota-Robles, TFFP founder and executive director, believed that something new must be introduced to school districts to fight the urgent problem of food insecurity. 

“TFFP is a program I started about three years ago,” Cota-Robles said. “Before this, I worked at Whole Foods for 15 years. During COVID, I was an essential worker who had an epiphany — I wanted to do more to help my community. In 2021, I sold my house to start the TFFP. I left Whole Foods, which gave me the tools I needed to do this, came up with a business plan and I put in a great amount of elbow grease before we got the plans off the ground.”

Each week, TFFP educates kids on how to cook for themselves using a new recipe, along with fresh, local and seasonal ingredients and produce. Every Friday, TFFP provides children in its program with a meal kit, similar to the likes of HelloFresh or Blue Apron, that can feed at least four people. This way, not only is the child fed, but the meal feeds the household as well.

TFFP, however, stands apart from other food programs because the meal kits given to children require cooking. Through accompanying instructional YouTube videos with easy-to-follow instructions, TFFP teaches kids the essential life skills of cooking and the importance of sustaining oneself. 

“As far as I know, we’re the only nonprofit in the country that does what we do,” Cota-Robles added. “The thing that makes us unique is that we’re not just feeding kids, we’re teaching them life skills. We’re currently in four schools right now, and we work with sixth, seventh and eighth graders specifically, who have the fine motor skills to work in the kitchen, with about 230 to 240 meals given out each week. Because of their age groups, these pre-portioned meal kits center around health and the skills needed to learn how to cook. Each week there are new recipes, with tons of greens and other healthy options for them to work with.”

Each week, Tucson area students are in the kitchen learning the real-world experience of learning how to cook their meals with healthy, local ingredients. TFFP aims to teach children about nutrition, kitchen skills and how to be self-sufficient human beings. The program gives children the life skills they need to make quality, healthy meals for themselves, giving them a better chance of living a happy and healthy lifestyle.

“Nutrition is so essential for children and their families,” Cota-Robles said. “Cooking can unlock doors for these students — even the teachers in our schools have shared how much the atmosphere in the classrooms has changed on Fridays because the kids are talking about food and are so excited to receive their meals. It’s really empowering for these kids to be able to cook for themselves and their families. Food insecurity is a fixable problem — it’s a growing issue in the country and we need to stop it. Feeding children and giving them the nutrition they need not only helps them directly, but it helps their communities and the economy as well — it benefits us all.”

TFFP has a Monthly Giving Program, where community members are welcome to support Tucson families. Twenty dollars a month can cover the cost of feeding one child in the area a month and can help grow the TFFP organization to feed more of the community.

For more information about the Tucson Family Food Project, visit thetucsonfamilyfoodproject.org.