Healthy beginnings
STOCKTON - Maritza Gonzalez was with her toddler daughter, waiting in line at the Emergency Food Bank of Stockton/San Joaquin one morning, when a woman - parent-educator Veronica Segovia - walked up and asked whether she was interested in attending a free nutrition class.
"I had no idea what was going on," Gonzalez said. "I just came to get food."
But since that encounter, Gonzalez and 2-year-old Selena also have been coming for classes on health, literacy and child development in an initiative run by the Charterhouse Center for Families.
Launched in October, the pilot Nutrition and Literacy program sends Segovia to the food bank and other community hubs to gather parents for weekly lessons on health and early learning - lessons that organizers hope will be shared within families and throughout neighborhoods.
"Our focus is on the most vulnerable," Charterhouse Director Mikey Kamienski said. "This may be the only chance we have to work with them."