Sponsor Spotlight: Anglene Joe with Navajo Head Start

A defining feature of Navajo Nation Head Start's nutrition program is its commitment to honoring culture through food. Rather than viewing meals simply as a nutrition requirement, the team sees them as an opportunity to connect children with their heritage. Traditional foods such as corn, squash and melons regularly appear on menus throughout the year.

Nutrition education is also implemented in the classroom, where the program's Diné cultural and language initiatives help children learn the names of foods in the Navajo language and their cultural connections. The team continually looks for ways to introduce both traditional and new foods. One recent addition was dried sea corn, a food prepared using traditional harvesting and cooking methods. At the same time, staff are exploring foods from other cultures represented within their communities, helping children learn about the broader world while maintaining strong connections to their own traditions.

Food innovation is happening behind the scenes. Navajo Nation Head Start prepares meals on-site, with more than half of menu items made from scratch. Kitchen teams even make their own breads and all grains served use whole wheat. This year, staff took on the challenge of developing and testing many of their own recipes, focusing on reducing sodium while increasing flavor through herbs and spices rather than pre-packaged seasonings.

 

“We only do site-prepared meals. More than half of our menu items are made from scratch, even down to the bread. They make the tortillas, rolls, pancakes and a majority of our foods are whole wheat. We tell families that the only thing we heat up is fish sticks and that’s not very often, maybe once in our four-week cycle. We also added more spices in there. We eliminated salt, because we wanted to lower the sodium. The way that we grew up, more than likely we never experienced different spices and seasonings, so we wanted to spice things up for the kids.”

 

For Anglene, the impact of CACFP reaches far beyond mealtime. The program serves as a powerful tool for addressing long-term health challenges facing Navajo communities. With Type II diabetes affecting many families across Navajo Nation, nutrition education has become a critical component of the program's mission. Through family-style dining, classroom nutrition education, parent trainings, and partnerships with programs such as WIC and tribal health initiatives, families receive practical support for building healthier lifestyles at home.

 

“One of our goals this year is to incorporate more education, not only with the children but with the families also. There is a high prevalence of diabetes in Navajo Nation and a lot of it is Type II. One of the things we know is really important is that you need to teach children healthy eating from the start. It’s harder to change an adult’s eating habits.”

 

Much of the program's success, Anglene says, comes from the people behind it. She credits the team's decades of combined CACFP experience, commitment to scratch cooking, cultural menu development and willingness to learn from professional development opportunities.

Her motivation remains deeply personal. As a former Head Start parent and teen parent herself, Anglene understands the challenges many families face and wishes she had possessed the nutrition knowledge and resources available through the program when she was raising her own child. Today, she channels that experience into supporting the next generation of parents and helping children develop healthy habits from the very beginning.

 

“We also offer parent trainings. We just did some training at the beginning of the school year on healthy meals for families: Giving them resources, recipes and a lot of ideas on how they can incorporate the meal pattern at home. We also have an MOU with the WIC program and we do a lot of referrals. We share resources with parents on how to prepare and incorporate the foods that they already have available to them.”

 

Through culturally grounded meals, nutrition education, and a deep commitment to family wellness, Navajo Nation Head Start is demonstrating how CACFP can honor tradition while building a healthier future. By teaching children where food comes from, introducing them to new flavors, and connecting nutrition to culture and language, the program is ensuring that every meal helps nourish both body and identity.