To say that the Appalachian Nutrition Network was a dream of our executive director, Jim Couts, would not give justice to the process that led to what is now ANN. Jim spent three years administering the Summer Food Service Program for other non-profits in the state of Ohio. Doing what could be described as a labor of love, Jim and his colleagues would get up before the sun to prepare meals everyday; then, spent most of the mornings delivering meals across many miles.
Over thousands of miles logged delivering meals during three summers, He jotted down ideas as to how to change a statistic that held true in 2002 that no long is true today: Ohio’s 29 Appalachian Counties ranked dead last in percentage of low-income children receiving summer meals in the nation.
After writing a 50 page letter to the Ohio Department of Education outlining his plan to feed the many children going hungry in the summer months in Ohio’s Appalachia, Jim was invited to partner with another sponsoring agency in hopes of expanding Ohio’s child nutrition programs; thus the Appalachian Nutrition Network was established.
