• by Tony Silber , November 9, 2021

Highlights for Children, the multichannel brand that’s influenced generations of children, is partnering with Ocean Spray to educate America’s students on the heritage of the cranberry.

The brands will be offering teachers and parents free, downloadable Highlights-created mini magazines launching November 2021, and again in April 2022, that bring Highlights’ ‘Fun with a Purpose’ to Ocean Spray’s “Cranberries in the Classroom” program.

Ocean Spray, founded in 1930, is an agricultural cooperative owned by more than 700 farmer families in the United States, Canada and Chile. Highlights for Children is celebrating its 75^th birthday in 2021.

In the program, the first mini-magazine will be made available to download for free, this month, here. The mini-magazines are filled with educational articles, a recipe, jokes and tongue twisters, as well as one of Highlights’ signature Hidden Pictures puzzles. Other puzzles and activities are included to spark curiosity and encourage learning.

This month, the theme of the mini magazines will be cranberries, timed to the annual fall cranberry harvest and National Eat a Cranberry Day on November 23. Coming next spring, the theme of the second installment of the partnership for the mini magazine will be sustainability, timed to Earth Day, in April 2022.

“This school year has held unique challenges for children,” said Lece Lohr, president of Highlights Consumer Business. “For some, it’s their first time back in classrooms in more than a year; for most, they’re adjusting to yet another new normal. Partnering with Ocean Spray, an organization with as rich a heritage as Highlights, is incredibly meaningful for us. It allows us to provide free, engaging reading materials into classrooms in an authentic way. Instead of sending sales materials home, we’re putting reading and learning tools immediately into the hands of more kids.”

The cranberry curriculum is engaging for students as they learn cranberries are native to North America and Indigenous Americans were the first to realize the benefits of cranberries. The first sauces were made at home long before commercial canning became available.