It sounds like a classic David-and-Goliath challenge, but in fact, the experience of five Shasta County children and their local Wal-Mart reads more like a Cinderella story of systems change.

The group of middle school children came up with a plan to change the way America’s biggest retailer stocks its checkout aisles, in order to counter the marketing of unhealthy food choices to kids. How could they possibly succeed?

As it turns out, all they needed to do was ask.

The asking, of course, took considerable focus and effort, unfolding over a period of six months as the children moved from brainstorming to ultimately a sustained collaboration with the Wal-Mart store manager in Anderson, Calif. Along the way they transformed not only their community’s access to healthier foods but they themselves took on new roles as effective leaders and policy advocates.

Through The California Endowment’s Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) program, South Shasta County was selected as one of six community demonstration projects aimed at reducing obesity and diabetes—two of the most prevalent chronic diseases—by improving food and physical activity environments for school-age children.

It was during an afterschool program fostering community engagement in 2006 that the five students (Jonni Hinton, James LaRiza, Rebecca LaRiza, Allie LaFayette, Emily LaFayette) from Anderson Middle School—aged 11 to 13 at the time—hatched their “Kids Make a Stand” check-out stand initiative.

The Public Health Department’s community organizer Christine Haggard helped facilitate the children’s efforts. She recalls their surprising first meeting with Wal-Mart. “When the children met with the store manager, Tim Trimble, they asked him some tough questions: "Don’t you care about the kids in your community? Don’t you want them to have good energy and better test scores?’ But Mr. Trimble, being a father of four children himself, did not take much convincing.”

They completely redesigned the standard Wal-Mart shelf display to replace candy bars and chewing gum with raisins, nuts, pretzels, granola bars and lean beef jerky. Wal-Mart staff then built two displays according to the children’s specifications.

In order to continue the experiment, Wal-Mart wanted evidence that customers in fact supported healthier snack choices. “But after just two weekends, Wal-Mart called off the survey because the sales spoke for themselves. Sales had doubled and in some cases tripled—the product was just blowing out of there,” says Jeri Butler, senior public health assistant with the Shasta County Public Health Department.

A third display has since been added in the Anderson store, along with refrigerated “cold boxes” offering 100 percent fruit juices, low-fat yogurt and fresh fruits and dips such as sliced apples and peanut butter. The changes successfully implemented at the Anderson Wal-Mart are now expanding to other district stores and could potentially lead to changes in Wal-Mart stores nationally.