In Michigan schools, children are eating fresh peaches for the first time after only tasting canned. The kids take a juicy bite, and their faces light up. Even apples—the iconic school fruit—are causing a sensation as children learn in school meals that different varieties can be sweet, tart, and in between. And Brussels sprouts? Yes, please. Roasted. It’s all thanks to an innovative Michigan program that is cultivating healthy eating habits among children by introducing them to the wide variety of fruits and vegetables so necessary for good nutrition, and doing it in schools—the places where kids get up to two and even three meals a day.

The Double Up Food Bucks program, which matches SNAP dollars spent on fruits and vegetables, is a national model for healthy food incentives. It operates in 20 states and is expanding to more, but it began in Michigan.

Every day, in communities across America, people with low wages face difficult tradeoffs when trying to cover the necessary expenses of daily life. These tradeoffs include balancing the costs of housing, health care, child care and transportation as well as the ongoing struggle to afford healthy food. In some neighborhoods, there may be very few or no places to buy healthy food, adding time and transit expenses to the price of groceries. That’s why more than 45 states offer incentive programs to help Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants fill their pantries with more fruits and vegetables.

Through a new initiative, El Paso county is actively working to improve food retail infrastructure and bring grocery stores, community markets and mobile food stands to areas of the county with high poverty, few living wage jobs and lack of healthy and affordable food.

Within Kansas City, MO, a baby born in one neighborhood had a life expectancy 15 years shorter than a child born just a few miles away. Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO),a driving force for social justice and health in Kansas City and a Voices for Healthy Kids grantee, responded to the challenge in many ways. That comprehensive approach to improving health, particularly in neighborhoods that historically have lacked access to financial investment and opportunities, helped Kansas City win a 2015 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize.