ASHEVILLE — Programs to prevent and reduce childhood obesity that were kick started by a three-year grant from the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund will continue in local schools and communities.

The funding created the Growing Minds-Healthy Bodies partnership, which helped to bring fresh produce and nutrition education to children and families around Western North Carolina over the past three years. The programs that created school gardens, organized field trips to local farms, demonstrated healthy cooking and delivered nutritious meals to students will continue to operate around the region although the grant is complete.

Children First, along with MANNA FoodBank and Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, worked together to form the Growing Minds– Healthy Bodies partnership and promote healthy eating and physical activity in North Carolina.

The partnership was a result of the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund Fit Together grant, a $4.5 million statewide overweight and obesity prevention initiative. Growing Minds-Healthy Bodies was one of 21 grantees in North Carolina.

Shelley Booth, Growing Minds-Healthy Bodies coordinator, said the idea of the grant was to fund ongoing programs and help them to expand in the local community and schools, with the added attention toward reducing childhood obesity.

Along with giving out thousands of pounds of food over the past three years, the programs:

• Reached nine elementary and high schools with school garden programs where students grow and eat their own vegetables.

• Provided 11,900 students in four school districts with the opportunity to eat locally grown produce.

• Organized 39 cooking demonstrations that taught 2,280 children and 340 adults how to prepare healthy food.

• Provided 1,596 children in 15 elementary schools with 60,222 pounds of fresh produce to take home to their families.

• Delivered nutritious meals to 941 children.

• Implemented healthy snack classes at 17 sites that reached more than 760 children.

Patti Evans, a teacher at Isaac Dickson Elementary School, said the programs allowed her students to have their own garden, eat locally produced food, take field trips to local farms and learn about cooking healthy foods.

“It is really great for the kids to care about what they are eating,” Evans said.

She said parents at the school will continue many of the projects that started as a result of the grant.

Emily Jackson, Growing Minds project director at ASAP, said the success of the partnership also enabled the groups to secure additional grants to expand their current projects and start new ones, while giving schools the basis for continuing the programs on their own.

“I feel really positive that teachers and schools will continue because they see it’s worthwhile and see the benefits to the children for themselves,” Jackson said.