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Arkansas
  Nutrition is for Everyone (NIFE) in Arkansas is continuing to plan and create an approach to year two of the NIFE grant. To date:
- We have recruited and selected one Deputy Ambassador. We are working on selecting our remaining four Deputy Ambassadors and Nutrition Advocates for the grant year.
- In June, we hosted a large nutrition education event for the Parents Advisory Council (parents of children with disabilities) in North East Arkansas and local community members. During the event, we offered nutrition education, focusing on ways to increase fruit and vegetable intake and hosted a cooking demonstration for the families of children with disabilities, including our adapted Cooking Matters curriculum.
- We are finishing our Disability Facility Nutrition Education curriculum to educate staff and family members on adequate nutrition information to care for People with Disabilities. Once finished, we will record a tutorial video to be posted online, in addition to the curriculum, for anyone in the state to access. We have multiple Disability Facilities that have agreed to make this nutrition education curriculum and video tutorial mandatory for their training of employees.
- We began hosting our first adapted Cooking Matters class at a local disability facility, BridgeWay, for adolescents, 12-18 years of age. In this class, we are focusing on self-esteem building activities in the kitchen while teaching our adapted Cooking Matters curriculum. Our goals will be to establish confidence in the kitchen and utilize this opportunity to educate on healthy nutrition lifestyle practices. The participants in the class have enjoyed the recipes so far and seem to thrive while learning new skills in the kitchen!
Arkansas looks forward to reaching our goals and serving the disability community in our state for a second year of the NIFE grant.
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Loiusiana
 The Louisiana project has established a new partnership with the Arc of Greater New Orleans. Our Ambassador is working closely with the Arc's Community Development Specialist to start nutrition education events in all of their centers. The Arc in Westwego, Louisiana completed their six-week Cooking Matters course in July, where eight individuals with IDD graduated after learning to choose, shop for, and cook healthy foods. The Westwego location was the first of six Arc centers interested in hosting Cooking Matters courses in the Greater New Orleans area. The Louisiana Nutrition Ambassador is working with the regional Arc activities coordinator to begin classes at the five other centers.
The Louisiana project continues to develop ideas for single day workshops that can be hosted across the state by a variety of professionals and community members. These shorter events will require less time, training, and supply money to accommodate organizations that may have limited resources. These events will focus on exposure to fruits and vegetables and how to integrate them into your diet every day.
 Additionally, last month the Louisiana Ambassador, Lauren, was welcomed as a full-time faculty employee to Louisiana's University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) at the LSU Health Human Development Center. Lauren looks forward to the additional connections and resources she will be able to draw from to improve the Louisiana project and make a greater impact on the nutrition and health of individuals with disabilities and their family and friends.
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Mississippi
 The Mississippi Nutrition Ambassador, Alma Ellis, attended the ambassador training meeting at AUCD headquarters in mid-June. The information shared by AUCD staff and the state-specific activities shared by the Nutrition Ambassadors from the four first-year grantees will be valuable in moving Mississippi's project into its initial year. The Nutrition Ambassador is also working to establish an advisory committee of nutrition specialists for statewide networking and to assist in guiding project activities. Taylor Carley, self-advocacy coordinator at the Institute for Disability Studies, has been named as the first Deputy Ambassador. An additional four Deputy Ambassadors will be tapped for the project along with five Nutrition Advocates. In the upcoming year, Mississippi will hold five recruitment events and five nutrition education events.
Networking has been an important part of the start-up for Mississippi's Nutrition is for Everyone project. A press release was prepared and released statewide on June 30, generating an article in the Hattiesburg American newspaper, 'Nutrition is for Everyone' at Southern Miss will Reach out to People with Disabilities.
The press release and article have produced telephone calls and emails of interest about the project. The Nutrition Ambassador has identified and reached out to potential NIFE MS Advisory Committee members at the Department of Nutrition and Food Systems at The University of Southern Mississippi, the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Mississippi Department of Agriculture for an August committee meeting. It has been exciting to experience interest in the program. As each new contact has been made, new networks and potential partners have been identified and nutrition information shared. A project fact sheet is currently being developed.
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Oklahoma
 Deputy Ambassadors in Oklahoma taught two nutrition classes this month to Spanish-speaking families with children with disabilities. Starting in July, we will have a Spanish nutrition training at Integris Hospital once a month and at a Variety Care Clinic in Oklahoma City once a month where parents are encouraged to bring their children. The Nutrition Ambassadors planned fun nutrition activities for the children so they could be involved in the classes including measuring how much sugar is in a soda and creating a healthy plate with a variety of fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains, and dairy.
The Deputy Ambassadors from the Oklahoma Self Advocacy Network (OKSAN) have been providing Healthy Living presentations (with major focus on increasing fruits, vegetables, and cooking at home) throughout Oklahoma including Pryor, Oklahoma in June and trainings in Ardmore, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa in July.
 We are in the process of developing new partnerships for this year and have had several planning sessions with the Deputy Nutrition Ambassadors. One goal is to incorporate more cooking skills into the nutrition education classes to help meet the goal of cooking more meals at home.
Follow us on Facebook for nutrition tips and events: https://www.facebook.com/nutr4allOK/. Contact Ashley at [email protected] for more details or to join the efforts in Oklahoma.
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Tennessee
 Nutrition education classes for a new class started in June for the post-secondary education program at U. of Memphis. Summer classes are smaller, but students are just as interested. The Nutrition Ambassador and a dietetic intern are incorporating nutrition into the program's Health Advocacy class. They are shorter and more intense, but still include the basic curriculum of education, interactive activities, and a food tasting each time.
One of the students this summer looked puzzled when we looked at the MyPlate "protein" category, and the other students were suggesting chicken, steak, pork chops, etc. He raised his hand and said, "But I'm a vegetarian and I don't eat those meats." When asked what he ate that he thought had protein, he identified beans. That started a great discussion of non-meat sources of protein that fit into MyPlate category, including beans, other vegetables and grains that are higher in protein, nuts, cheese, and other dairy.
Along with a sampling of stone fruits (apricots, peaches, plums, cherries), we also had a good discussion of oral allergy syndrome (OAS), a typically mild itching or tingly sensation of the mouth, lip, throat, or tongue after eating some raw fruits, which several folks experience, including the Nutrition Ambassador!
During the July nutrition education classes at U. of Memphis, we talked about classes of nutrients, sampled vegetable snacks with a (purchased) cream cheese dip, and visited the food court for a scavenger hunt (finding fruits and vegetables on the menus) to put knowledge into action. The dietetic intern demonstrated a phone food app (MyFitnessPal) to set and track health & food goals, and scan food labels and log nutrition content for goals on the app.
The students also go to a cooking class, and one of the teachers noted that they asked that the recipes the students prepare include a variety of healthy foods. And for the party on the last day, they agreed to include recipes with foods from all the MyPlate categories!
Plans are underway for this program's fall classes. Contacts are in process across the state with other post-secondary education programs and other dietetic progra
ms to provide similar education. A needs assessment nutrition-related learning of the agencies making up the Tennessee Disability Coalition is underway.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working with its partner, the 
