For 40 years, the Division of Nutritional Sciences and Cornell Cooperative Extension have been teaching low-income families in communities across New York state how to prepare healthy meals.

To commemorate the anniversary, a new video series depicts the history and future of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) and Cooperative Extension's other nutrition outreach programs. You can watch the video, "40 Years of EFNEP," at http://www.fnec.cornell.edu/.

"This program has a way of touching and empowering people that goes way beyond nutrition," said Jamie Dollahite, associate professor of nutritional sciences. "Nutrition is important, and it's an entree into people's lives, but we've found effects far beyond what people eat. It contributes to their personal development."

The program -- the oldest of its kind in the nation -- centers around the philosophy that local residents with strong ties to their communities are the best people to teach their neighbors how to eat nutritiously. One part of the video features Mariellen Woodward-DeFelice, a nutrition educator in Genesee County, who participated in the program. "I see so many families who have so many needs, and they're working on so many issues," she said. "If you can help build them up, then they're a little bit stronger, and they can take care of those issues of their own a little bit better."

EFNEP began in 1969, and was the largest nutrition education program in the country for some years. Today it serves participants in more than half the counties in New York, reaching more than 6,000 families each year, as well as several thousand youth.

Sheri Hall is assistant director of communications at the College of Human Ecology.