Julia Wang

Fieldwork Essay – Completing Hours

God’s Love We Deliver is a community-based organization that prepares and delivers medically

tailored meals to individuals meeting certain eligibility criteria, including inability to cook on their own

due to medical condition and financial status. In this fieldwork opportunity, I have worked for the Nutrition

Department in the creation of nutrition content for patients. The two big projects I worked on were the

development of a community resource booklet for discharge patients and the creation and development of

a nutrition blog post about the EWG’s Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists.

The main challenge I faced there was in regard to how to proper deliver nutrition education in a

clear manner, adequate to the specific public, and how to stimulate a behavior change in the audience,

either by dietary and health behavior changes or by enrollment in entitlement and benefit programs. As I

have learned in the lecture, the information and learning directed to the adult age group must be

meaningful, concrete, positive and able to promote a change and build a skill. The information must also

be translated into a food behavior, in an easy-to-understand way rather than in a heavily scientific manner.

It must also be creative and promote a desire or curiosity to know more and change. Another lesson that I

learned was about the available food resources and organizations, and entitlement and benefit programs.

I have dived deeper into the eligibility criteria and how programs, such as SNAP, Health Bucks, Farm

Markets and Greenmarkets, work and may benefit lower income individuals in the NYC area, my targeted

population. I have also learned how to contact these programs and apply, and the availability of other

governmental resources, such as distribution of religious meals and emergency meals. In addition, I also

gathered information about non-organizational resources available to specific medical conditions and age

groups, such as Meals on the Wheels for seniors, and food rescue organizations like City Harvest.
 In addition, for the blog post, I addressed the issues of purchasing produce with excessive

chemicals (Dirty Dozen list) and affordable and safe alternatives to organics (Clean Fifteen list), also

accounting the issues of sustainability, affordability and food resources to aid low-income individuals to

purchase fresh produce, topics covered in the lecture. This has also reminded me of the assignment about

nutrition policy and environment, as I looked into ways that the entitlement programs could aid in the

purchase of sustainable produce. For the discharge booklet, I created content for food shopping and

budgeting, and meal planning. Besides environmental sustainability, I also emphasized population

background and the economic issues, dietary requirements regarding to age and cultural differences

among the patients being discharged. I have also used the material and ideas in the class discussion to

create tips to reduce sodium intake and ways that meal planning and prepping could be performed at home

and improve health status. For example, one of my classmate’s idea that had stood out to me was to rinse

the content in cans, which are much more affordable than out of season fresh produce, allowing the

consumption of more vegetables and fiber and high value protein without surpassing the budget and

dietary guidelines of sodium.

All these lessons, challenges and connections to the lecture had increased my knowledge about

community education and how to deliver information and implement changes. I learned about community

resources that are locally and nationally available and how they work, who is eligible and what are the

pros of enrolling/attending, budgeting and how to deal with a constraint budget while maximizing health

food options, sharing the idea of sustainable purchase and cooking and ways to decrease food waste. These

resources had improved ability to translate information to the public, and my creativity while doing the

program and lesson planning of my term assignment, focused in older adults and diabetes prevention and

maintenance.
 Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences

2900 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn NY 11210

(T) 718-951-5026 * (F) 718-951-4670

HNSC 4230 Community Nutrition Education

Spring 2021 Fieldwork Experience: 30 hours +

January 27, 2010

Dear Prospective Fieldwork Site Supervisor:

As part of the undergraduate course HNSC 4230 Community Nutrition Education, Brooklyn College
nutrition students are required to complete 30 hours or more of fieldwork in a professional community
nutrition setting. Potential programs include but are not limited to WIC, senior centers, cooperative
extension, schools, health department offices and community based organizations. Students are
responsible for finding their own fieldwork site. The Spring Semester runs for 16 weeks, officially
ending on May 15, 2021. To allow students to identify, secure and complete their fieldwork before the
end of the session, we encourage them to find fieldwork sites as soon as possible.

This fieldwork experience is a significant step in preparing future nutrition and dietetics professionals
for a career in community nutrition, and we are grateful for the many professionals who choose to host
our students. Students are expected to participate as volunteers in the community nutrition program/
organization that chooses to host them. We understand that they may not be allowed to have hands on
experience in some sites, but we encourage as participatory an experience as possible.

The objective of this fieldwork is to allow students to observe examples of daily operation of a
community nutrition program, including needs assessment, recruitment, materials, staffing, customer
service, quality control etc. As a Fieldwork Site Supervisor, we ask you to assign these activities at your
discretion. If you agree to host the student, please complete the Agreement form before the start of the
fieldwork experience, and the completion form, at the end of the experience. Please be mindful of the
due date in these forms.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Melissa Fuster, PhD

Melissa.Fuster@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Assistant Professor – Public Health Nutrition
Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences
 Brooklyn College, HNSC 4230
Fieldwork Experience: 30 hours
Fieldwork Site Form: HOURS COMPLETED FORM

SUPERVISOR MUST COMPLETE THIS FORM AFTER COMPLETION OF 30 HOURS OF

FIELDWORK:
NOTE: Students must submit this form to instructor on or before May 15, 2021.
The Brooklyn College student named below has completed __31.5__ hours of Community Nutrition
fieldwork at the following site:

Student’s Name: _Julia Wang______________________________________________________

Site Name: _God’s Love We Deliver

Supervisor Name: __Lisa Zullig, MS, RDN, CSG, CDN

Supervisor Title: ___Director of Nutrition Services

Supervisor email: lzullig@glwd.org

Strongly Strongly
Agree Neutral Disagree N/A
Agree Disagree
The student met the expectations of a
x
fieldwork volunteer in our organization
The student was on time and prepared
x
based on agreed upon schedule
The student interacted appropriately
x
with clients or patrons
The student interacted appropriately
x
with diverse populations

Additional comments:
Julia was extremely responsive and worked diligently on several projects this semester. She was
detail oriented and produced thoughtful work. She worked well with the RDNs.

Supervisor Signature: ___Lisa Zullig

______________________________________________________
 Brooklyn College, HNSC 4230
Fieldwork Experience: 30 hours / Fieldwork Site Form: Evaluation of Fieldwork Form
STUDENTS MUST COMPLETE THIS FORM AFTER COMPLETION OF 30 HOURS OF
FIELDWORK (On or before May 15, 2020)
Your name: Julia Wang
Facility: God’s Love We Deliver
Supervisor name: Lisa Zullig
Date: 05/05/2021

Strongly Strongly
Agree Neutral Disagree N/A
Agree Disagree

The supervisor was knowledgeable and

X
competent

The supervisor gave me feedback on a

X
regular basis

The supervisor communicated

X
professionally and gave clear explanations

The supervisor oriented me to the facility X

I gained useful knowledge at the site X

I would recommend this site for other

X
students

What experience was most helpful at this site?

The development of nutrition content posts, allowing me to learn, know and access different available
government and community food resources and programs, and credible nutrition resources.

Anything you would have liked your supervisor to do differently?

The guidance was adequate as it was.