CalFresh Healthy Living

CalFresh Healthy Living (also known federally as SNAP-ED) supports healthy, active and nourishing lifestyles by teaching county residents about good nutrition and how to stretch their food dollars. The program also focuses on building partnerships in communities to make the healthy choice, the easy choice.

The Lake County CalFresh Healthy Living Program improves the nutritional health of low-income County residents by providing access to nutrition education, physical activity education, and leadership toward healthy community initiatives. Visit CalFresh Health Living's website for great tips on healthy recipes and eligibility for CalFresh Food benefits.

For quick budget-friendly recipes, visit CalFresh Healthy Living's recipe resource (formerly Champions for Change). Your one one-stop shop for CalFresh Food, WIC, school lunches, recipes, and regular email notice on healthy eating can be found at the eatFresh website!

Social Ecological Model

Lake County Health Services CalFresh Healthy Living Program (CFHLP) began a new 3 year funding cycle in October of 2019. The objectives are dramatically different from the previous grant cycle's scope of work. There will be less Harvest of the Month activities and more emphasis on policy and systems changes for better health choices. We have included a graphic representation (adapted from the Centers for Disease Control) of the larger sphere of influence when there are policy changes and enabling improvements in the built environment. Harvest of the Month would fall into the orange circle while food service managers adopting a policy to add locally grown produce to school lunches would fall into the red circle.

The Social Ecological Model (SEM) is a theory-based framework for understanding the multifaceted and interactive effects of personal and environmental factors determine behaviors, and for identifying behavioral and organizational leverage points and intermediaries for health promotion within organizations.

CFHLP will be helping selected school food service staff do just that through the use of the MendoLake Food Hub. The Food Hub provides the infrastructure for a strong, vibrant local food system by connecting small farmers and buyers through their easy-to-use distribution network.

Market Match

The CFHLP staff also work with the County's Farmers' Markets and the Market Match Manager to help CalFresh recipients double their food dollars. Market Match is California's healthy food incentive program, which matches customers' federal nutrition assistance benefits, like CalFresh and WIC, and benefits hundreds of small and mid-size California farmers.

Learn more at the Market Match website, and find a Farmers' Market with the Ecology Center's Farmers' Market Finder.

County Health Data

Visit Hope Rising Lake County to review Lake County health data, including the 2019 Community Health Needs Assessment (PDF).

Show Us Your Plate!

Sign up for regular healthy eating tips at MyPlate.

What does your Lake County plate look like? Show how you use foods from your state and region by taking a picture of your plate and sharing on social media using the hashtag #MyPlateMyState.