Time Magazine recently named Houston Independent School District (HISD) Officer of Nutrition Services Betti Wiggins one of its 50 most influential people in healthcare.
Wiggins joined HISD in 2017, overseeing the district’s nutrition program, which serves over 280,000 meals daily. During the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey last year, Wiggins helped serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to students and their families and played a role in making meals free for all students for the rest of the school year. Today, the district (the nation's seventh-largest) continues to provide meals to students at no charge.
Before coming to HISD, Wiggins was executive director of the office of nutrition at Detroit Public Schools, where she helped facilitate several farm-to-school initiatives including a school garden. Under her leadership, Detroit Public Schools also became the first district in the country to offer universal free breakfast for students.
For her work in Detroit, Wiggins was named FSD's FoodService Director of the Year in 2017.