Eat Right Philly in Review: 23 Years of Success Stories

Published in our November 2025 newsletter

Since the inception of Drexel University’s Eat Right Philly program in 2002, the SNAP-Ed extension program has helped thousands of individuals of all ages live their healthiest lives. Eating more fruits and vegetables, learning to cook healthy meals on a budget, drinking more water, growing produce at home and in school gardens, increasing physical activity, and practical nutrition education are all ways the program has focused on wellness for participants, schools, and communities. Below are a series of short stories highlighting some of our successes over the years.

Hydration

Wellness is more than just what you eat; what you drink matters too! Eat Right Philly encourages students to limit sugar sweetened beverages, instead prioritizing water and other more nutritious options, such as low-fat or fat-free milk, 100% fruit juice, unsweetened tea, and smoothies made without added sugars. The first two stories show how the most successful nutrition initiatives don’t just include students; they let them lead.

Robotics Promotes Healthy Hydration

Healthy hydration is a priority at Abraham Lincoln High School. As part of their GreenFutures Plan, the School District of Philadelphia has invested in hydration stations that provide easy access to filtered, safe water. Eat Right Philly has also been busy educating students about drinking more water, through in-class hydration lessons, reusable water bottle distributions, and healthy hydration events. But one of the most successful hydration initiatives has been the partnership between Eat Right Philly and The Railsplitters, the school’s robotics club.

Beginning in 2023, the collaboration has included several school-wide promotions, including creating flyers for hydration stations and enhancing a hydration-themed bulletin board. With the help of their Nutrition Coordinator, the club worked together to create a brief presentation on the importance of drinking more water. The Railsplitters also assisted Eat Right Philly in distributing reusable water bottles , making sure that the student body was informed on both healthy hydration and water bottle hygiene. They prioritized peer-to-peer interaction to reach anyone who had missed the main distributions.

A highlight of the Railsplitter’s work came during a First Tech Challenge (FTC) Scrimmage, a Robotics Competition hosted at Lincoln High School. The club, with the assistance of Eat Right Philly, created a spin wheel of hydration questions, distributed materials, recipes and infused water samples, and gave a presentation, which included a section highlighting their hydration outreach work and collaboration. Their hard work in both robotics and hydration earned the team several awards and allowed them to move up to a state level competition.

In addition to developing STEM skills, learning how to be innovative, working as a team, developing community outreach projects, and learning how to design, build and program robots, partnering with Eat Right Philly allowed the students to fulfil their community engagement hours all while helping to make their school a healthier place.

Building Bridges with Bots: Lincoln and Propel Unite for Wellness

Lincoln High School and Northeast Propel Academy are two neighboring schools that present the perfect opportunity for collaboration. Last year, students from the Railsplitters Robotics Club at Lincoln High School collaborated with Eat Right Philly to plan a special event promoting healthy hydration to elementary students at Northeast Propel Academy.

Originally scheduled for March, the event was delayed several times and ultimately took place in May, just a week before graduation. Despite the timing, Lincoln students remained committed, staying after school to rehearse their hydration presentation, refine key talking points about robotics, and incorporate feedback from Eat Right Philly coordinators and Lincoln faculty. Their preparation paid off! On the day of the event, everything ran smoothly. The Lincoln students successfully engaged Propel students in discussions about hydration, encouraged them to try healthy, homemade mango limeade, and sparked an interest in robotics in the younger students. Many of the Lincoln students felt uncomfortable because they had never taught a lesson before, were anxious about public speaking, and, for several club members, English is their second language. But they quickly gained confidence and delivered their presentations with enthusiasm and professionalism; the collaboration proved to be an ideal opportunity for both team building and personal growth. Propel faculty were thrilled with the outcome and expressed strong interest in continuing this collaboration in the future.

Cooking

One of the most effective ways to teach participants of all ages about nutrition is through hands-on cooking activities. Learning to cook healthy recipes introduces participants to foods they may not have otherwise tried, while teaching valuable culinary and nutrition skills, such as food safety, healthy swaps, reading labels, and more. Read the following stories to see how Eat Right Philly has helped individuals of all ages find joy in cooking and eating healthy food.

Cooking Up Confidence, One Recipe at a Time

Drexel University’s Cooking Club curriculum, a series of lessons that introduce students to MyPlate concepts and practical nutrition topics, is popular with Nutrition Coordinators and schools alike.

Cooking Club is an annual tradition at Kearny Elementary School. Students of a variety of grades and ages (rotated each year to ensure broad participation) are eligible to join this after-school group led by Eat Right Philly. Each session includes nutrition education, taught by a Nutrition Coordinator, as well as lots of hands-on opportunities to practice cooking skills.

At the start of last year’s Cooking Club, one student was unsure of her skills in the kitchen. But with every session, she learned new techniques and became confident in her skills. Her proudest moment came when she mastered banana pancakes with strawberry topping—and then recreated the recipe at home for her family. She proudly recounted the experience, saying, “I didn’t think I could actually cook something on my own, but now I want to try making more recipes at home, this was just the start!” Her family was impressed, and she left Cooking Club with plenty of experience and inspiration to try even more recipes on her own.

Fear No Veggies: Turning “No Thanks” into “Yes, Please!”

For seven years, EAT RIGHT PHILLY has been partnering with the Supporting Older Women Network (SOWN), a group of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. The group, which meets at 11th Street Family Health Center, recently changed their name to Connectedly , expanding to include more participants. EAT RIGHT PHILLY’s work with Connectedly includes nutrition lessons, cooking activities where participants prepared and sampled nutritious recipes, as well as discussions about how participants are working towards eating balanced diets .

During the very first session, one participant firmly shared their dislike of trying new foods, especially vegetables! But as weeks passed and the group became increasingly engaged in the cooking portion of each lesson, the attendees slowly started tasting the different recipes they prepared together. They even shared with their family that they had been trying new recipes and vegetables—much to everyone’s surprise!

The participant explained that learning to prepare, assemble, and cook vegetable-centered recipes made trying the finished dish far less intimidating; understanding the cooking process gave them the confidence to try something new. During the final class, the group prepared Chicken Jambalaya with lots of vegetables, including tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers, and this once hesitant participant enthusiastically declared that this was a recipe they planned to make at home.

Fruit and Vegetable of the Month

The next two stories center Eat Right Philly’s Fruit and Vegetable of the Month promotion. The goal of this initiative is to introduce students to a variety of fruits and vegetables—some familiar, others new—and to present them in ways students may not typically encounter. Students learn about the featured produce item: how it grows, how to select it, and how to prepare it, and often have the opportunity to sample the produce item, either on its own or as part of a special recipe. Some classes even learn to prepare the recipe themselves as part of a hands-on cooking experience that reinforces the lesson content.

From School Lesson to Family Table

Pairing the Fruit and Vegetable of the Month Wellness initiative with nutrition lessons can be a successful way to teach students how different nutrition concepts connect. For one Nutrition Coordinator, integrating the highlighted fruit or vegetable into a curriculum about how foods grow was a natural way of helping students learn about nutrition content, cooking with produce, and how food is grown all in one lesson.

During a class last April, students prepared Lemon-Garlic Spinach, featuring April’s Fruit of the Month: lemons. The session also reinforced the concepts in a lesson about the “Parts of the Plant”. Students were able to connect each of the ingredients in this recipe to different components of an edible plant. One student enjoyed the recipe so much that she requested a copy to take home. In May, while participating in the final session of the year, the student shared that her mom had made Lemon-Garlic Spinach for dinner, and the recipe had quickly become a family favorite, stating that she and her dad “really liked the spinach, and we finished the entire plate.”

Chopping, Cooking, and Confidence: A Student’s Journey in the Kitchen

For one special needs class at Penn Treaty School, the Fruit and Vegetable of the Month initiative became an experience that was well-loved and also developed culinary skills. While working together to prepare December’s featured recipe, Garlic Ginger Ramen with Cabbage , one student shared a proud moment from home with their Nutrition Coordinator: “I tell my mom about the things we learn and cook when you come. I showed her how I use a knife and started to cut an onion. At first, she was nervous for me to show her, but I made a claw with my left hand holding the onion and gripped the knife handle firmly with my right. As I kept cutting, she started to smile and said, 'I'm so proud of you.' Now I help my mom in the kitchen during dinner.”

Through hands-on cooking, the students not only built practical skills in the kitchen but also gained confidence that extended into their home lives, creating moments of pride and connection with their families.

The DRAGON Project

Our final story features one high school class’s experience with The DRAGON Project, a special curriculum designed to empower high school students to take ownership of their individual and community wellness. In the next story, one senior class was able to work together to make meaningful change at their school.

Dragon Project Helps Students Power Through the School Day

Through the DRAGON Project, an intervention for high school students, EAT RIGHT PHILLY aims to teach practical nutrition education in combination with project-based learning. The DRAGON Project concludes with a student-led wellness project, accomplished by the high school students working together to identify and improve an aspect of their school environment. Over the past 3 years, Nutrition Coordinators have guided numerous Walter B. Saul High School students through this immersive curriculum, which has culminated in projects such as growing produce for the student body and teaching peers about healthy hydration with a school-wide smoothie tasting.

Students at Saul have very early lunchtimes — some as early as 10:00 a.m. Since the school day ends at 3:19 p.m., many students, especially those who eat early, report feeling hungry toward the end of the day. As the afternoon wears on, it’s not unusual for students to ask teachers for something to eat, though not every teacher keeps snacks on hand. To address this issue for their Dragon Project, Ms. Gittelman’s Senior Resource Management class decided to raise money with the goal of purchasing healthy snacks for select AG classrooms. They were able to partner with the student council for a successful fundraiser that earned them $380!

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