Food Matters: provides nutrition education to children. It is the longest running program of Local Matters. Food Matters provide 24-week, 14-week, and 10-week ecology curriculum. These lessons are aimed at providing children with a better understanding of healthful food – what it is, where it comes from, how to grow it, and how to prepare it. 

Cooking Matters: extends the education efforts of Food Matters to adults and families. Local Matters partners with Share Our Strength to provide this program and inform parents on healthy eating skills to end child hunger and obesity. Cooking Matters hosts six-week courses with the help of volunteer culinary and nutrition experts. The course teaches participants how to select nutritious and low-cost ingredients and how to prepare them.

Growing Matters: provides resources and support for community members to start and care for food-production gardens. This program is aimed at helping more people grow food themselves and increasing the supply of local food. Growing Matters supports a variety of growing approaches: from small-scale ones (container gardening) to large-scale ones (urban farming).

Wellness Matters: provides fun, interactive food education for the workplace. Local Matters partners with workplaces to provide activities such as “Lunch and Learns” – 45-minute workshops that provides participants with healthy, seasonal lunches – and “Cook-off Challenges,” which are great for team retreats. Either way, the program will help make wellness work for everyone.

Community Outreach: works to engage the community to address healthy food access and education in the area. It does this through Grassroots Engagement, Food Mapping and Planning, and Community Partnerships. All three of these techniques work to bring a high level of community engagement to the efforts of Local Matters.