Oregon has been selected to be part of 4 Blue Zones Project Communities and within each Food Hero is a partner 
https://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/blue-zones-project-aims-bolster-health-four-oregon-communities

• Klamath Falls, Grants Pass, The Dalles, and Umpqua

   

National Scholastic Press Association 2018
Middle School Individual Awards for Story of the Year

• Honorable Mention, 7th grade ALTV Armand Larive 7th grader Ashley Treadwell: Cooking Class Video

   

Oregon State University Vice Provost Award for Excellence - Food Hero Social Marketing Campaign 2018

The Vice Provost Awards for Excellence celebration showcases exceptional outreach and engagement projects. 

Fuel Up to Play 60 Funding Awarded - Highlight Healthful Food Everywhere in School, Umatilla Armand Larive Middle School 2017

Funds will go toward a new computer, accessories and software for ALTV which will allow middle school students to make more Food Hero time lapse recipe videos, supervised and mentored by SNAP-Ed faculty.  Once the videos are created, there are some funds to provide cafeteria tastings during lunch for all students which will be coordinated by SNAP-Ed and school nutrition staff. 

National Extension Association of Family & Consumer Sciences 2016

• Marketing Package Award, 1st Place National Winner
• Communications Newsletters Awards, 3rd Place National Winner
• Marketing Package Award, 1st Place Western Region Winner
• Communications Television/Video Program Award, 1st Place Western Region Winner
• Communications Newsletters Award, 2nd Place Western Region Winner

Food Hero programming and marketing regularily occurs within the Columbia Gorge Region of Oregon.  They were selected to receive one of seven National Culture of Health Prizes by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2016

• In one of the two RWJ vidoes that accompanied the award Food Hero is featured.  Link: http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/collections/coh-prize-winners/2016-winne….  

OSU Extension Association, Oscar Hagg Extension Communications Award 2016

OSU Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Affiliate 2016

• Communications Award: Newsletters
• Marketing Package Award
• Communications Award: Television/Video Program

Feature of the Food Hero campaign in the SNAP-Ed Land-Grant University Systems Report, Executive Summary and Final Report 2016

• Lined here: https://nifa.usda.gov/snap-ed-lgu-reports.  

Inclusion of the Food Hero campaign in the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States 2015-16

• Linked here: https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/program-administration/snap-ed-toolkit-strategies-interventions

National Association of Extension 4-H Agents 2015

• Outstanding Achievement in Educational Package, Team

Edible Portland, Ecotrust, Local Hero Award, Nominee 2013

Research Publications

Food Hero TV & Radio Interviews

Articles about Food Hero

Food Hero Research Summary

A 2009 initial social marketing campaign development needs assessment consisted of two sets of focus groups (6 groups, n=36) and a pre-post phone survey (n=2046).  After campaign development process evaluation, combined with continued formative evaluation was conducted with target moms via English language focus groups (2011-2015, 9 groups, n=49), paper and online surveys in over 50 Oregon elementary schools (2013-2014, n=797), and Spanish language focus groups (2011 and 2013, 3 groups, n=18).  Additionally formative focus groups with African American (3 groups, n=13) and older adult audiences (2 groups, n=14) in 2015 and 2016 gained important information on Food Hero among other themes.  In 2016 and 2017 two more phone surveys were conducted (n=600).

Research results (phase I) led to a redesign of the Food Hero website, launched in 2011. FoodHero.org currently (March, 2016) has over 125,000 unique users visit each month, with over 2.2 million page views in the past year.  Over a four-year period (2012-15), recipe pageviews on the website, averaging >290,735/month in 2015, increased 1,728%.

Food Hero is included as an intervention in the USDA publication SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States.

Ongoing research and evaluation tools:

• The Parent Recipe survey is still in use and continues to show behavior change related to Food Hero.  Results can be found in our annual impact reports.  
• For almost a year we have been conducting a kids tasting survey (n>10,000) to taste test our recipe with kids and then mark some recipes as “kid approved”.  We are using the results to share with target moms, and foodservice sites to promote Food Hero recipes. 
• We are about to launch an adult intercept survey which we have been developing for a couple of years – using the results of the process evaluation surveys (n=13), educator feedback, and cognative interviews with the target audience.  
• We have begun developing/validating a cooking tool survey based on research previously conducted in Oklahoma (http://www.joe.org/joe/2008february/rb4.php).

We are working on writing up our research and have a website link where we post our published research and share many useful development tools from the campaign for others to use (Food Hero Community Kit) https://www.foodhero.org/community-toolkit).  Our published research includes a paper about our social media platform, which has been one of the most downloaded articles for the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior for over a year.