Between October 1, 2016 and September 30, 2017, NJ EFNEP reached 1,826 adults and 12,039 youth in the lower income areas of:
- Camden County,
- Cumberland County,
- Essex County,
- Hudson County,
- Mercer County, and
- Passaic County.
What does EFNEP do?
EFNEP helps people improve their food and activity habits!
Between October 1, 2016 and September 30, 2017, as a result of EFNEP classes:
- 22% of participants ate more fruits and vegetables.
- 13% of participants became more active.
- Participants decreased their mean intake of saturated fats and sugars by 78.7 calories per day.
- 56% of our participants reported they “sometimes” “often” or “always” ran out of food before they took our classes; afterwards that percentage decreased to 49%!
What our educators have heard participants say about NJ EFNEP?
"There was a lady who was attending my class series when her daughter was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. She said the classes really helped her to help her child eat healthier and to monitor what she was eating. She told me that when she would go to the doctor, the doctor couldn’t really tell her what to feed her child. I told her to take a handout of MyPlate when she went to see him and to have him tell her what foods would be best for her daughter from the MyPlate food groups…and she did!"
"There was one overweight lady in my class who had diabetes. She told me she was really glad she had taken the class, because she didn’t know how to read labels, or to figure out how much sugar and sodium were in the foods she was eating. She said that she had gotten weighed in by the woman who ran the diabetes clinic, and she had lost weight…mostly due to me and the class!"
"I (an EFNEP paraprofessional) am Latino and so are my participants. I tell them that a lot of things they eat, like sour cream, have a lot of fat. When I showed them how much fat was in sour cream and taught them to read labels they were really able to connect the dots! They said, “Oh my goodness, I didn’t know it had so much fat in it!” I had a participant who came back to me and said that because of the lessons she doesn’t buy the sour cream anymore because her kids are overweight. She said now she uses just a little cheese on her quesadillas and only buys sour cream once in a blue moon. I think because we’re paraprofessionals and we know the community we know what they eat, and we can really help them change what they eat."
"Sometimes in our EFNEP classes we only have an hour and we don’t have much time to exercise. Even when we only have a little time my participants always tell me “we have to exercise; we have to exercise!” One lady said when she started exercising her neck was bothering her. After she finished the class series she said that exercise had helped her relieve her stress, and now her neck didn’t hurt so much."
Who is EFNEP for?
NJ EFNEP is for families - both adults and children.
Adults
Groups of parents and others (for example, grandparents) who plan for, shop for and prepare children’s food are welcome in NJ EFNEP classes. Most who attend NJ EFNEP classes must:
- Have income at or below 185% of the U.S. Federal Poverty Guidelines,
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Be enrolled in or have children enrolled in:
- Supplemental Food and Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),
- Free or reduced price school breakfast and lunch programs,
- Head Start,
- TANF/FIP (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), or
- WIC/CSFP (Women, Children, Infant/Commodity Supplemental Food Program).
NJ EFNEP adult classes are offered at community centers, churches, food pantries, prison pre-release programs, and other sites that support those who qualify for NJ EFNEP. For more on our adult classes, click here.
Youth
Youth programs include youth, ages 5-18. NJ EFNEP youth classes are offered in schools, after-school programs, YMCAs, community centers, and other sites where low-income children are found. For more on our youth classes, click here.
NJ EFNEP is administered by Rutgers University Cooperative Extension.