June 2026 Newsletter

Planting Seeds of Health in Early Care and Education Settings

A group of young children smile and hold freshly harvested vegetables, including carrots and radishes, outside their early care center.

Welcome to this month’s update from the Healthy ROOTS Team! We’re working across 10 counties to improve access to healthy foods, create more places to be active, and support families and early care settings in building healthier futures.

As the traditional school year wraps up and summer begins, June is the perfect time to spotlight the important role that Early Care and Education (ECE) settings play in shaping healthy habits from an early age. Through nutritious meals, hands-on learning experiences, and supportive environments, ECE programs help lay the foundation for lifelong health and well-being.

This month, we are excited to highlight resources, programs, and initiatives that help young children connect with where their food comes from while building enthusiasm for fruits, vegetables, and healthy eating.

We encourage you to share this newsletter with colleagues and partners who may benefit from these resources. If you received this from a colleague, we invite you to subscribe below to stay connected and receive future monthly updates.

County Spotlight & Success Story:

Mt. Olive Head Start Garden of Love, Columbus County

An NC State Extension staff member smiles as she shows a head of broccoli to a group of young children gathered around a raised garden bed outdoors.

A recent harvest day in the Garden of Love at Mt. Olive Head Start Center in Whiteville, North Carolina, brought together teachers, students, families, and volunteers to celebrate the work of many hands, patient watching and waiting, and the culmination of a dream. The dream began with Center Director Lamont Grate, whose vision and passion for creating an outdoor learning environment inspired and propelled the project from idea to reality. Not only were children able to harvest produce from the seeds they planted in the raised beds their families helped build, but they also participated in taste tests to enjoy the fruits of their labor and curiosity. With the help of a dedicated group of community volunteers and partners, including Columbus County Family and Consumer Sciences Agent Meleah Evers, whose years of partnership with Mt. Olive Head Start Center helped lay the foundation for this work, the garden was installed and dedicated in November of 2025. The May harvest event marks just the beginning of a plan to continue digging, planting, growing, and learning in the years to come.

You can read more about the Garden of Love and the journey from vision to harvest here, and check out this reel with Healthy ROOTS Program Gardener, Libby Blosser, to get a better look at how the garden grows.

Other Project News & Updates

In Jones County, ECE teachers recently completed Be Active Kids Training and the physical activity module of Go NAPSACC. A Farm-to-ECE cohort is scheduled to launch in fall 2026.
In Washington County, ECE teachers continue to implement food-based learning activities. The county will also launch a Farm-to-ECE cohort in the fall of 2026.
In Robeson County, Head Start centers have expressed interest in local food procurement, raised-bed gardens for classrooms, and improvements to the center's cycle menu. The Healthy ROOTS team looks forward to strengthening these partnerships and growing this work in the coming year.
In Halifax, Robeson, and Lenoir counties, the Reaching Families with Important Nutrition Messaging, a 2-month social media campaign to reach families with young children with messaging promoting healthy feeding and nutrition practices, launched in early May. The Healthy ROOTS team will leverage insights from this campaign to build a strategy for similar messaging efforts in the future.

Featured Resource

Bite Sized: Feeding Strategies for Home & School (Handout)

This month, we're spotlighting a practical resource from NC State Extension's FEEd Lab designed to support caregivers and educators in building positive food experiences for young children. The Bite Sized: Feeding Strategies for Home & School handout offers simple, playful strategies, like letting children choose their "mouse bite" or "elephant bite,” that reduce mealtime pressure and encourage kids to explore new foods at their own pace. Whether you're a teacher, parent, caregiver, or community partner working with young children, this free resource offers ready-to-use language and techniques to help make trying new foods a fun, low-stress experience.

A one-page educational handout titled 'Bite Sized: Feeding Strategies for Home & School,' produced by NC State Extension's FEEd Lab. The handout encourages caregivers and educators to make trying new foods less intimidating by giving children choices and control. It outlines three strategies: offering bite-size options using fun animal comparisons, allowing children to spit out food they don't like, and celebrating their efforts with positive reinforcement. A blue illustrated banner displays six bite sizes from largest to smallest: Elephant, Horse, Dog, Cat, Bird, and Mouse. The handout features a photo of a smiling young child and directs readers to www.thefeedlab.org for more information.

Training Opportunity

Webinar: Grow Farm to ECE in Head Start: What Successful Implementation and Support Look Like (Association of State Public Health Nutritionists)

📅 Date: July 22, 2026, 2-3PM ET

🔗 Register: https://asphn.org/events/farm-to-head-start/

Share This! (Social Media Toolkit)

📣 Post #1:

🍽️ Building healthy habits starts at the table — and it can be easier than you think!

The Division of Responsibility in Feeding is a research-backed approach that gives caregivers and kids each their own role at mealtime:

👨‍👩‍👧 Caregivers decide: WHAT food is served, WHEN meals happen, and WHERE the family eats.
🧒 Children decide: WHETHER they eat and HOW MUCH.

When kids are trusted to listen to their own hunger cues, they build a healthy relationship with food that lasts a lifetime. Download this free handout to share with families and educators in your community:
🔗 https://go.ncsu.edu/dor

📣 Post #2:

🤾‍♀️🏃Physical activity benefits children in many ways. From brain health to bone health to

heart health, getting enough movement is key for children.

☀️As we kick off the season of warm weather and long days, learn more about the benefits of physical activity for kids:

https://bit.ly/3ZHdGFP #ActivePeople

⭐ Tip for posting: These posts are designed for Facebook. Copy and paste in a new post and Facebook should generate an image from the linked site. For Instagram, consider using a stock image (one of your own or one with a Creative Commons license) along with the featured text and link.

Research & Evidence Corner

In May, members of the Healthy ROOTS team published an article, "More PEAS Please! Improves Preschool Children's Science Knowledge and Language Development through Food-Based Learning", in the Journal of Nutrition Education & Behavior. They found that More PEAS Please!, a food-based learning program implemented by Head Start teachers, improved preschoolers’ science knowledge and language skills and was successfully implemented by Head Start teachers, highlighting a promising approach to integrating nutrition and early childhood education. The study highlights how food-based learning can be a powerful tool for teaching science and building vocabulary while creating positive, low-pressure experiences with healthy foods. You can read more about this publication and the More PEAS Please! program here.

Read the full article here.

Upcoming Dates

July 2026: National Parks and Recreation Month. For resources and ideas for promoting Park and Recreation Month in your community, check out this toolkit from the National Recreation and Parks Association.
July 16, 2026: Jones County Ripe for Revival Mobile Market Ribbon Cutting
October 8, 2026: Deadline for Connecting Communities to Trails grant applications. Learn more about this opportunity here. The Healthy ROOTS team can provide technical assistance for your community’s application. Reach out to healthyroots@ncsu.edu for more information!

Thank you for your continued partnership in building healthier communities.

We look forward to sharing monthly updates, resources, and stories from across our region.

With appreciation,

The Healthy ROOTS Team

🌐 https://www.healthyrootsnc.org/

✉️ healthyroots@ncsu.edu

This project is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $2,304,000 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

NC State University and N.C. A&T State University work in tandem, along with federal, state and local governments, to form a strategic partnership called N.C. Cooperative Extension.

This institution is an equal opportunity provider.

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