Eating Healthy on a Budget

Good morning team!

Late last week, I attended an event hosted by the local credit union about eating healthy on a budget. I learned some things and was reminded of a few things. Here are the highlights:

• Plan ahead…plan your meals for the whole week and use this menu to make your grocery list. This will help cut down on your trips to the grocery store which means more time for other things during the week and fewer impulse buys (more money stays in your pocket)
• Don’t go…shopping on an empty stomach or without your shopping list
• Buy generic…and from the bulk bins (the ones that you can measure out the amount of fruit, oats, flour, grains, etc you need)
• Buy seasonally…it’s fresher, tastier, and cheaper
• Drink water…instead of juice or sodas; get a refillable bottle and use tap water
• Learn to cook…you control the cooling method, the ingredients, and the portions. This will also help you eat out less
• Cook more often…by eating out less and avoiding pre-packaged meals, you not only save money, you will be saving calories.
• Try cooking once and eating twice…take your leftovers for lunch, have one night a week where you eat leftovers, or cook something one day and reuse the ingredient later that week (ie: roast a chicken, have chicken one night and use the leftovers for chicken tacos later in the week)
• Eat less meat…meat is expensive, try beans for an alternative source of protein.

Some good, nutritious, affordable options:

• Oatmeal for breakfast...try it with fruits or nuts. You can change up the flavor tons of ways
• Make a big batch of soup or chili to eat throughout the week
• Try using beans and whole grains for the base of your meals
  

If you have any other tips and tricks for eating healthy on a VISTA budget, share them with the team. Or share your best, easy recipe to help get us all into the kitchen!



Laura

Diary of a Single VISTA - Episode 1

Inspired by all the recent office tours, I made a little something for my time at LINC. Occasionally, I just take out the flip camera (who I've named Flipper) for some random footage, so I've edited a few together to introduce my office. Eventually, I'll have to make future episodes, and a catchy intro theme song!

And yes, I'm hoping you all got the PIC TV joke. Think about it...there you go.

-Tommy D in K.C

KCMO Bainbridge Computer Lab

I don't have a video of my workspace but I do have a picture of my little corner of the computer lab, and a recent news video of my section 8 housing unit.

Channel 5 Action News link video

There is high tension between the homeowners living in my neighborhood (where I work and also live) and residents/property owners of the section-8 housing located in the neighborhood. The middle/upper class mostly white residents are making a good statistical case that crime follows project section-8 housing but the real-life factors are...where else can low-income people live where it is close to jobs? public transit? social service resources? free clinics? Hyde Park in Kansas City is really good for all those reasons.

Thanks for taking a peek into my little part of One Economy Connected Communities :-)

Tina Coles

KCMO

Need a file converted?

Hey guys,

Have you ever been working on a flier or brochure (or really anything else for that matter) and wanted to convert the file to a .pdf? I found a website called Zamzar: http://www.zamzar.com/ They will convert your file for free and email you when it's done. If you click on the "Conversion Types" link at the top of the page you can see the long list of files they can work with. And I know it says you need to register, but I haven't and have had 3 successful conversions from publisher files to pdfs.

Laura

Welcome to the Winston-Salem Office!

We've seen the Atlanta office...

So here is a peek at the Winston-Salem, North Carolina office (sorry no fun music in the background)

--Adwoa Asare

Tour of Atlanta Office

Welcome to the Atlanta Office!

Come take a quick tour of the Atlanta Office. Wish you were here.

Now i've shown you mine, what does yours look like?

Er... that doesn't sound quite right.

You know what I mean.

Ruqiyyah

The Two Month Slump??

Completely unrelated, awesome image

"Well, apparently after a couple of months you're going to get depressed," my supervisor Brent told me during our second-ever meeting. Flipping through a binder he'd gotten from his supervisor training, he pointed out an adorable graphic of a cartoon man running along a line representing his enthusiasm throughout a VISTA year. He starts as an enthusiastic beginner. About a month in, he has a "second thoughts" phase where he's hiding behind the line, barely peeking over the top. Then two months in, the line dips sharply, and the little VISTA man is barely hanging on for his life with the words "Disillusioned Learner". We had a good laugh. Every now and then we'd bring it up as a running joke.

In the middle of a bleh Tuesday today, I looked at the calender on my computer and realized that I've just now hit that two month mark (just like the rest of my VISTA class). Of course, I've had up and down moments since I started, but now every time I have a down moment, I start wondering "Am I a disillusioned learner now!?" It's true that I've started to see some of the frustrating politics that non-profits deal with (even within One Economy), and now and then I will see my ultimate pet peeve: simple tasks that should take five minutes but suddenly you have to talk to five different people for it to happen. Still, I'd say I'm still pretty enthusiastic to be a VISTA. I think asking a VISTA if they're going through their disillusioned learner phase is like asking a woman if she's going through her period; just don't go there. Suddenly every time there's a problem, "Well, he's just disillusioned right now".

My VISTA situation so far has been somewhat foggy because the two guys who are responsible for my position being created are also two of the busiest people in a world of busy people: my supervisor Brent and our One Economy regional manager Donovan. I can tell that building and promoting the Beehive- the main agenda on my VAD- are not among their highest priorities. I'm also pretty sure that I've gotten on both their nerves by constantly wanting in to help with different projects. It's good to know I'm annoying the right people! It's lead to some interesting directions, including becoming a picture/video guy for LINC and a possible citizen journalism project. I think some other interesting possibilities may be on the horizon. I'm trying to deal with the problem of being a guy with free time surrounded by people drowning in too many projects. Pass it on, I'm ready!

If this is as bad as it gets, it's going to be an amazing year!

-Tommy D from K.C

East Atlanta Village Farmer's Market

Greetings,

Check out this video about the farmer's market in East Atlanta. Look for EBT enabled Farmer's markets in your own city and let me know what you find. Also, the windows movie maker is what I used for this video. Its easy to use and has lots of features. Enjoy!

Link to Video: http://www.connectorsclub.org/video/eavfm-videofinal

Ruqiyyah

Day of Dignity Community Event

Hi again,

This is actually a post on behalf of Andy as well as myself, so you all dont think im blowing up the blog! On Sunday we went to the Day of Dignity in Atlanta and passed out information on the beehive and Atlanta Healthcare for you. I shot this video of Andy.

Anyway, we had a good time. Here is the official report from the event:

Day of Dignity September 6, 2009 Community Outreach Synopsis

About the Event: Day of Dignity is an annual event sponsored by Islamic Relief which provides health screenings, free clothes, hot lunch, canned goods, personal care bags to homeless and low income people. The event was staffed by 200 volunteers from the service community, pharmacy students from Georgia State, physicians, and service agencies. These were the target of our outreach efforts, although some homeless thought they would go to a library or a service center computer and check out the website. http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/09/19/atlanta_muslim_homeless.html?cxntlid=inform_artr

Look for video updates on the event in the next couple of days here: http://www.dayofdignity.com/

OE Representatives: Ruqiyyah Nu’Man, Andy Santamaria

Display: We set up a table with the beehive banner, hand cards, Atlanta Healthcare for you cards, volunteer sign up form, Atlanta Digital Connectors one pagers and the DC brochures. We also set up a Beehive powerpoint on a laptop. We gave a stack of 50 “I got my diabetes under control” cards to the Diabetes screening station to give out with their screenings. We did not get any back.

Outcomes: We handed out over 100 beehive hand cards with a personal synopsis of the website, and over 75 Atlanta Healthcare for you cards (there was no blind hand outs, everyone was a personal introduction to the website). We signed up 15 potential volunteers and discussed Digital Connection partnerships with a representative from Stand Up For Kids (a youth homelessness prevention nonprofit with a computer lab), and a representative from another youth serving organization based out of the 14^th St. Masjid. Additionally, we talked to an environmental health inspector from Dekalb county and a nutritionist both interested in volunteering for health initiatives, a CPA interested in volunteering at tax time, and a physician from the Pakistani Physicians Network interested in the use of 247townhall for tolerance education. We also created two short flip videos about the event.

Gardening and Technology

Greetings,

In an effort to make the greatest impact on One Economy, I think it is important that we share what we are working on here, and solicit each others help, just as Tina asked for feedback on outcome measures. I encourage you all to reply to her post.

My pet project is trying to integrate gardening into our web content and support community gardening as a beehive/healthcare for you nutrition and exercise initiative.

I am trying to flesh out the project, and would like some feedback on the idea, if you are interested in pushing it from your project site, ideas on directions it could go, or anything else you would like to say about it.

Here is my rationale: OE seeks to improve peoples lives by introducing technology into how they find information and connect to others, leveraging connections and information to meet their needs and accomplish their goals. Because our mission is integrative in nature and seeks to become self sustaining, creating a gardening initiative will promote our online content by tapping into concerned and committed community groups who meet to garden.

Gardening has a number of important community benefits including reducing crime, neighborhood beautification, outlet for youth, improved nutrition, increased healthy activity, and community building. Community gardens are gathering places and are often found at schools and community centers.

So here are my thoughts for integration into our existing properties and programs:

-Beehive- garden locator (ive already included existing locators into our locator function), articles on gardening, nutrition, and getting outside (ive already mentioned them in an article i wrote on getting outdoors in Atlanta). New area of site on gardening for health (funding dependant of course) which includes an information sharing platform for community gardeners, maybe even a place for them to develop their own garden website/blog area.

-247townhall-Gardening for life initiative that gets people to talk about their experience gardening and the impact on their community, and how technology improves their experience

-pic.tv- integrate community gardening into cooking with chili, publix chef pieces (working with milton on this). (dependant on funding)- do a roaming garden documentary series on different gardens around the nation. Acquire existing content on community gardens like cnn's piece on Habesha gardens http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/06/29/bia.urban.farming/

-HC4U- integrate under nutrition- include a living well section (talked to DeNita and she said although she likes the idea, there are other priorities and as of now, the site is strictly a health care locator with highlighted cause content).

-DC have them create digi content about local gardens, or have their service be to establish website or digital inclusion strategy for local gardens.

Other ideas

-place wireless routers at gardens for wi-fi access

-place computer kiosks at gardens for access to beehive content and online idea sharing network, gardening solution center, and program tracking.

Thanks for taking the time to review my idea. Id also like to know about any possible funders or program models you can think of.

Best to you,

Ruqiyyah

Introductions

Good morning Team,
As most of you heard on yesterday's VISTA call, I had the opportunity to visit the Winston-Salem One Economy office yesterday. When I was there, Meg and I had the great idea of doing a short flip video to introduce ourselves. Enjoy!

Laura

Remember when...

Hi Everyone,
My site supervisor shared this Monty Python clip with me yesterday. You may have seen it already...it's 4 older gentlemen reminiscing about how poor they were back in the day.

I'm starting my second VISTA year, and getting used to being back in the office, the pay schedule, and everything else VISTA. When I saw this, it just made me laugh and brightened my day because, sometimes, when I'm waiting for that Thursday pay day to roll around I feel like I would fit into their conversation quite well.

Enjoy!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

Laura Parewski