Family Meal Night …Celebrated During Ohio Parents Week and National Preparedness Month

Since 2001, the Ohio Grocers Foundation has been a proud supporter of Ohio Parents Week and Family Meal Night.  The Foundation has worked to promote the concept of building stronger families through the practice of regular meals at home.  The fourth week in September is Ohio Parents Week, which was created to recognize and celebrate people raising children and promote the many resources available to assist with the vital role of parenting.  This year, Ohio Parents Week is September 26th - October 2nd.

A special event during Parents Week is Family Meal Night – A Day to Eat Dinner as a Family, which was held on Monday, September 27th.  The day is committed to encouraging families to sit down and eat dinner together, a simple, yet effective means of maintaining the bond between parent and child.  Research by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University also has shown that the more a child eats dinner with his or her family, the less likely that child is to smoke, drink alcohol, or use illegal drugs.

We are pleased that the First Lady of Ohio, Frances Strickland, participated in this event again this year.  The First Lady visited three grocery stores and incorporated information on National Preparedness Month, which is September.  The First Lady “shopped” with students in the grocery stores to find the items to make a preparedness kit.  Items included water, non-perishable food, flashlight, first-aid kit, etc.  The students were also given information on how to make a family emergency plan.  The hope is the students will sit down to dinner with their families and develop an emergency plan and share what they learned about preparedness month.  We would like to thank Great Scot in Findlay, Rays in Lima and Wagner's IGA in Minster for hosting this event and the First Lady.

To view pictures from the event, please click here.

For resources on Family Meal Night please see below.

For information on National Preparedness Month, please visit www.ready.ohio.gov or www.ready.gov.

You may download this logo by clicking below:

For additional media tools, please go to:

       http://www.fmi.org/consumer/family_day/

        www.casafamilyday.org