The evening began with an open bar with champagne, fine wines, and hors d’oeuvres made by the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle Culinary Job Training Program students as guests mingled and began to bid on items in the silent auction.  Items available in the silent auction included tickets to area sporting events, original art from local artists, hand crafted jewelry & scarves, tickets for entertainment, golf outings, signed sports memorabilia, getaway vacations, wines, gift certificates from top local restaurants such as Second Empire, The Angus Barn, Solas, and many more!

Then the guests were then invited to take their seats in ballroom to begin the dining experience with Master of Ceremonies Greg Fishel, Chief Meteorologist, WRAL-TV. This six course feasting marathon is made possible by top chefs graciously donating their time and talent to create a food experience beyond any available at a single location in the Triangle. Each course is thoughtfully created to tantalize the palette of even the savviest “foodie,” and each course is exquisitely paired with its ideal wine match to maximize the total experience.

The tantalizing 2012 menu enjoyed was as follows:

• First  Course: White Bean Soup with A.D. Jones Farms Fresh Bacon and Lavender Chantilly, 18 Seaboard 

• Second Course: Smoked Bacon Wrapped Diver Scallop with Pepita Beurre Niosette, Aged Balsamic, & Chive, Midtown Grille

• Third Course: Duck Confit and Frisee salad with cider brown butter vinaigrette, Coquette

• Intermezzo: Yuzu Sorbet, Honey Roasted Passion Fruit, Vanilla-Lime-Coconut “Air”, Umstead 

• Main Course: Smoked Beef Tenderloin, Winter Squash, Black Truffle-Bacon Sauce, Umstead

• Dessert: Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse,  Cocoa Biscuit, Candied Kumquats, Umstead

Throughout the evening, there were multiple opportunities for guests to expand giving beyond their attendance. The evening’s abundance is used to directly and ironically highlight the lack that so many of our neighbors in the Triangle community experience on a too regular basis.

Adding to the excitement of the evening was the live auction! Items available this year were: a one hour Hot Air Balloon Ride for two, a Harry Marr Pig-Pickin’ for 50, a Farm to Fork Dinner for 12, prepared on the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle farm by Chef Terri Hutter and students/graduates of the CJTP with a focus on seasonal, locally grown foods, an Urban Food Group Dine Around – a chauffeured limousine for 8 with a different course at Porter’s, Frazier’s, Vivace, and Coquette, and – the highlight of the evening – a 14-carat black diamond necklace designed exclusively for the event by Ora Designers/Fine Jewelers. Thanks to our auctioneer, Brian Hoyle, voice of the RBC center!

Every year Ora Jewelers generously donates exquisite jewelry for this event.   The jewelry is modeled throughout the evening leading up to the raffle. This year featured a Nina Nguyen 18k yellow gold over sterling silver “Chateau” necklace and earrings with multicolored Druzy quartz stones.

Guests were also invited by the Taste of Hope Chair IFFS Co-Founder Maxine Solomon to become a sponsor for our BackPack Buddies program, which provides children from food-insecure homes with weekend meals during the school year. Each sponsored child receives a backpack containing six balanced meals and two healthy snacks at the end of every week. The children are served in partnership with school principals, guidance counselors, and various after school programs.  This year, the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle distributed 40,264 backpacks filled with 241, 584 nutritious weekend meals to over 1,350 children at 45 sites. The need is great – over 111,000 children in our service area receive free or reduced-price lunch at school, and one in four children in the Triangle community are hungry.  This year, we plan to reach even more of them.

Backpacks for Backpack Buddies

IFFS Co-Founders Jill Staton Bullard and Maxine Solomon

Thanks to our 2012 Taste of Hope Sponsors! It is only by working together that we can end hunger!

Thanks to the fantastic chefs who donated their talents to the event: Scott James, Midtown Grille, Jason Smith, 18 Seaboard, Beth LittleJohn, Coquette, Scott Crawford, The Umstead Hotel, Daniel Benjamin, The Umstead Hotel, Will Hall, IFFS Culinary Job Training Program. 

Thanks also to the Taste of Hope committee members who made the night a success: Maxine Solomon, Committee Chair & Inter-Faith Food Shuttle Co-Founder, GlaxoSmithKline, Michelle Masella Corcoran, Inspro, Melissa Hartzell, Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Donna Hovis, US Food Service, Ann Marco, US Food Service, Kim Brame McGimsey, Breakthrough Health, LLC, Renee Saddler, RenSad Designs, and Julie Stewart, SAS.

Want to get in on the fun, the giving, the deliciousness? Look for our Blossoms of Hope luncheon this Spring!

We then let children and adults who were visiting the museum that day participate in service by packing the backpacks. These backpacks will now go to feed children on the weekend who are food insecure. It was a great way to take some of the great ideals that Dr. King preached about and put them into action.

This is the second year we held this event, and we plan do this again next year in case you missed out. Thanks to everybody who helped out and to Marbles for allowing us to do this at the Museum!

Reminder: We’re still looking for more backpacks so we can reach even more food-insecure children this year! See our last post for more information.

How Can You Help?

We are always excepting new and used backpacks at both our Raleigh location and our Durham location. The addresses are below:

-Raleigh Location – 1001 Blair Dr., Raleigh, NC 27603 (Behind the State Farmer’s Market)

-Durham Location – 1720 Guess Rd. Suite 14, Durham, NC 27701 (Northgate Mall)

What Kind Of Backpacks Do We Accept?

We can use any backpack as long as:

-The zipper works

-There are no holes in it for food to fall out

-Both the straps are fully intact

You can also sign up to volunteer with helping sort food and fill the backpacks for our Backpack Buddies here.

For any questions, please contact Kyle Abrams, IFFS Backpack Buddies Program Coordinator at Kyle@foodshuttle.org or 919-250-0043.

Thank you for all your support!

Downloadable Internship Description

Downloadable Application

Mission: 

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle pioneers innovative, transformative solutions designed to end hunger in our community.

http://www.foodshuttle.org/

Responsibilities:

IFFS’s Nutrition Education Program seeks an intern to assist with the coordination of IFFS cooking and nutrition demonstrations at local health fairs/events. This internship offers opportunities to connect with local culinary professionals and nutritionists, as well as to develop skills in volunteer management, event planning, and record keeping.  The ideal candidate will have enthusiasm for connecting with community members, strong attention to detail and organizational skills, good time-management, flexibility, and ability to think on their feet.  IFFS Nutrition staff will provide training and support for this intern throughout their term.

Duties:

• Represent IFFS at all health fairs/events
• Maintain close contact with IFFS staff
• Coordinate all health fair/event booth logistics:

• Recruit and train volunteers with nutrition and/or culinary background to conduct nutrition and cooking demonstrations
• Organize all event materials (visual display, printed materials, cooking demonstration supplies)
• Coordinate with site contact
• Collect evaluation feedback from event volunteers and participants

Details:

• Unpaid position
• 20 hours/month
• Flexible schedule

————————————————————-

Nutrition Volunteer Internship – Office Assistants

Downloadable Internship Description

Downloadable Application

Mission: 

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle pioneers innovative, transformative solutions designed to end hunger in our community.

http://www.foodshuttle.org/

Responsibilities:

IFFS’s Nutrition Education Program seeks a volunteer intern to provide general administration support for IFFS nutrition programs. This internship offers opportunities to work in the field of nutrition and food insecurity, and develop a basic set of administrative skills in program coordination, basic research, data entry, and record keeping. The ideal candidate will have enthusiasm for organization skills, strong attention to detail, good time-management, flexibility, and ability to think on their feet.  IFFS Nutrition staff will provide training and support for this intern throughout their term.

Necessary Skills:

• Strong leadership capability.
• Identify with the vision, mission, and values of IFFS.
• Positive attitude and hard working.
• Ability and self-motivation to work independently.
• Ability to work with and respect for people of all ages and backgrounds.
• Come ready to work and to learn.  Arrive prepared and on time.
• Ability to lift at least 50 pounds.
• Maintain close contact with IFFS staff

Duties:

•    Basic office tasks: entering and updating data; organizing files
•    Organize food for Nutrition & Cooking classes
•    Deliver food to Nutrition & Cooking classes
•    Other long-term projects may be available, as needed

Details:

•  Unpaid position
•  10 hours/month
•  Flexible schedule

Job descriptions:

• Regional Farmer Training Programs Coordinator (PDF)
• Young Farmer Training Program Teaching Assistant (PDF)

About the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, IFFS Farm, Regional Farmer Training Programs and Young Farmer Training Program:

The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle (IFFS) pioneers innovative, transformative solutions designed to end hunger in our community. IFFS Nutrition, Farms and Garden Programs help build community health, wealth, and security by bringing our community together to EAT, GROW, COOK, SHARE, AND MOVE.  Food justice, inclusivity, meaningful economic development and environmental stewardship are pillars of IFFS farm programs.

Located in Raleigh, NC, IFFS Teaching Farm offers hands-on sustainable farming education at all levels. IFFS Teaching Farm grows thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables each year for IFFS distribution to over 200 agencies across the triangle region. IFFS farm programs aren’t just about growing food, they’re about growing farmers and growing our community. Educational farm programming includes volunteer opportunities, farm tours, workshops for farmers and homesteaders, and a Young Farmer Training Program for teenagers.

In 2012, IFFS will launch two new programs for farmer training: 1. a Regional Outreach Training Center (ROTC) in collaboration with Growing Power and Longview Alternative High School;  and 2. the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training – United Piedmont (CRAFT-UP).

In collaboration with Longview Alternative High School in Raleigh as a partner of Growing Power in Milwaukee, Inter-Faith Food Shuttle is Growing Power’s newest “Regional Outreach Training Center” (ROTC). Each Fall, Longview will host a weekend intensive farming workshop for teens, and each Spring, IFFS will host a weekend intensive farming workshop for adults. These two weekend workshops will be offered annually beginning Fall 2012. From Growing Power’s website:

“The vision for Growing Power’s Regional Outreach Training Centers is to provide Growing Power’s technical training support at the local level as an expansion of Our Vision: Inspiring communities to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time. A Regional Outreach Training Center, or ROTC, will be able to host Growing Power, “From the Ground Up” type workshop for the region and will receive technical support to plan and develop a Community Food Systems project inspired by Growing Power’s Community Food Center and Projects. “

“The Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training (CRAFT) is a farmer-led coalition organized by sustainable agriculture farmers in a self-selected geographic region. Participating farmers offer up their time, talents and experience to help prepare the next generation of farmers. The secret to CRAFT’s success is simple — farmers learn most effectively from other farmers. CRAFT provides farmer-to-farmer learning and access to the social network and culture of local farmers.”  ( www.craftfarmers.org).   Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training – United Piedmont (CRAFT-UP)  group will offer resources for residents of the Piedmont bioregion. CRAFT-UP will be a venue for established Piedmont farmers to streamline and network their training opportunities, while providing beginning farmers with a formal network and more resources for entry into farming careers.

The IFFS Young Farmer Training Program (YFTP) is a paid multi-year farming apprenticeship for teenagers in Wake County. IFFS hosts apprentices three days per week in sessions each Spring, Summer and Fall. Apprentices grow vegetables, herbs, mushrooms and flowers on our 6-acre Raleigh farm, design and implement profitable farm plans, market their produce while keeping good records, teach the community about farming and gardening, cook healthy meals, and advocate for a better food system. Food justice, inclusivity, meaningful economic development and environmental stewardship are pillars of YFTP.

On a chilly afternoon, thirteen teens from the Alliance Teen Center gathered for a Food Matters Program in Raleigh.  Two nutritionists along with one at-home cook prepared a program for the teens to get to know their on-site community garden and make use of what has been growing there.  Although the cold air intimidated the teens, they were all interested in venturing outside to see the garden and get their hands dirty.  Instructors broke the group in two – one group stayed indoors for a conversation on balanced eating while the other group went on the garden walk.  After each group finished, they switched activities so that everyone got to experience both activities.

The garden walkers were introduced to the garden and asked about their personal experience with growing anything from herbs to vegetables.  The instructor then showed them the herb plants that they’d be focusing on and harvesting for the activity that followed.  At first some teens were hesitant to smell and taste the herbs – mint, rosemary, thyme, and cilantro – but curiosity got the best of them all in the end and they all experimented with the plants and even found some that they enjoyed!

The indoor group discussed their current eating styles and favorite meals, while the nutrition volunteer guided them through suggestions for how to make small changes that would benefit their health in the long run.  While at first, the teens were not convinced that changes to their diets would be tasteful, the activity that followed quickly convinced them otherwise.

After the small groups had met and had conversations about the garden and balanced eating habits, all of the teens gathered around two tables to begin the activity – making snacks!  Teens at one table used an assortment of herbs from the garden to make their own personal fizzy drinks to take the place of soda!   They used seltzer water, 100% juices, fresh juice from citrus fruit wedges, and crushed herbs such as mint and rosemary (recipe below).  The second table had their hand at mixing up a Healthy Ranch Dressing (recipe below) dip using low-fat plain Greek yogurt, fresh lemon juice, dried spices, garlic, and fresh herbs from the garden including thyme and rosemary.

Everyone took part in making both snacks and at the end, they all enjoyed their own drink and a plate of the dressing with crackers and cut veggies!  One teen said this about the experience,

“You don’t need to always eat unhealthy stuff when you’re surrounded by natural and healthy foods such as plants!”

All of the participants left thanking the volunteers for sharing their knowledge and helping them learn how to make something new!

Healthy Ranch Dressing:

Makes 1 cup

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup low fat yogurt
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried celery flakes
• 1 tsp dried dill weed
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp fresh ground pepper

Preparation:

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk.
2. Serve with your favorite sliced veggies.

Fizzy Drinks:

Ingredients:

• Seltzer water
• 100% fruit juice
• Fresh herbs – rosemary, thyme, mint, lemon balm, etc
• Fresh fruit slices – citrus: lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit, etc

Preparation:

1. Fill a large pitcher, ½ juice and ½ seltzer water.
2. Rinse and cut citrus fruits.  Add juice from squeezed citrus fruits to the pitcher of juice soda.
3. Snip mint leaves, rosemary, and other fresh herbs you have.  Crush the leaves using your fingers and add them to the pitcher.
4. Mix well and add ice before serving.

We may be getting ready to bundle up in hats and scarves and hunker down for winter, and memories of spending time outside in the sun this summer may seem far away. But in gardening, winter can be a prime time for planning! Have you ever wanted to start your own garden but not known how? Or maybe you’re already an avid gardener and have been thinking about sharing your expertise and the benefits of gardening with others, say… by starting your own community garden?

If so, you’re in luck! This year, long-time IFFS volunteer Fred Woodard and Amanda Soltes, the IFFS Wake County Gardens Coordinator, along with other community experts have teamed up to put on a three-part workshop on helping folks here in the triangle get community-based garden projects up and running by Spring of 2012! The series covers planning & design, basics of gardening, tools and materials, and even shared hands-on time in one participant’s new garden.  The workshops are interactive, and designed to connect you with others interested in similar projects.

Our Community Gardens

Here at the Food Shuttle, we partner with communities to grow Community Gardens and promote healthy lifestyles. There are two major factors leading to food hardship: income & access.  Community Gardens, especially if located in food insecure areas, help increase access to healthy, nutritious food and help end hunger in those communities.  The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle has partnered with community organizations to start community gardens at 7 different sites:

• Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s Kitchen Garden, IFFS Headquarters, 1001 Blair Drive, Raleigh
• Mayview neighborhood, Raleigh Housing Authority site, Behind duplex 2136 Mayview Road, Raleigh
• Neighbor to Neighbor Outreach, 1200 S. Blount Street, Raleigh
• Alliance Medical Ministry, 101 Donald Ross Drive, Raleigh
• Longview School, 318 King Charles Road, Raleigh
• Parrish Manor neighborhood, at the end of Parrish Manor Drive (4190) in Garner
• West End Neighborhood Community Garden, 707 Kent Street, Durham- next to West End Community Center

Checking on the cabbage and greens at IFFS's Mayview's community garden

Through innovative initiatives and partnerships, our community gardens program provides community members with education and tools necessary to improve community health and nutrition.  Community members are empowered to take back control of their food choices and lead healthier lives through increased access to fresh produce, nutrition and culinary education, and opportunities for leadership development, community building, and physical activity. Through this workshop series, we hope to expand the reach of community gardens and extend their benefits to even more communities.

The Workshops

The first workshop in the series was held Saturday, November 19^th at Lakemont Swim Club, where Fred has recently started a community garden and an edible food forest. A group of enthusiastic soon-to-be-urban gardeners met to share ideas. They each drew and shared their own “Dream Gardens,” an activity inspired by the workshop Fred and IFFS Farm Manager Sun Butler attended at at Growing Power, a nonprofit in Milwuakee, WI and the national leader in intensive sustainable urban agriculture. As you may remember, the founder of Growing Power, MacArthur Fellow Will Allen, helped us kick off the community garden at Alliance Medical Ministry last year!

Lakemont Community Garden

The workshop participants shared not only the “why”s behind their interest in starting a community garden, but also the logistical “who”s “where”s and “how”s. They learned about and discussed garden types, location and size for the gardens, site considerations, whether the gardens would have individual plots or be communal, how to take a soil sample, as well as the practical aspects of running their future gardens. The gardeners came with curiosity, questions, and enthusiasm and left with answers, resources, and a supportive community to help them in this venture!

Workshop participants working on their dream garden pictures

Jasmina's dream garden plans

The second workshop in the series will take place February 11th, 2012 from 1-3:30pm at Alliance Medical Ministry (101 Donald Ross Drive, Raleigh, 27610) and will be led by Fred, Amanda, Abbey Piner, IFFS Nutrition Coordinator and MS Horticulture candidate at NCSU, Cullen Whitley, community garden expert from Highland United Methodist Church, and Bart Renner, MS Crop Science.  This second workshop will highlight how to read soil rest results, learn the basics of amending soils, and have participants share design plans for their edible garden projects then get feedback from local experts. This is open not just to those who attended the first workshop – anyone interested in learning more can come! If you would like to attend, just contact Amanda@foodshuttle.org to RSVP by February 4th. Suggested donation of  $5-10 per person.

The workshops are interactive, and designed to connect you with others interested in similar projects. Please encourage your neighbors, friends, and colleagues to attend as well! Details for the third workshop in March will be shared soon!

Community gardens are a great way to bring local food and anti-hunger initiatives together. While you’re thinking about your own garden, whether it’s your own personal one, a community garden you already contribute to, or your own “dream garden” that you’re now planning in your head, remember that not only do community gardens help increase the health of communities and provide access to fresh, nutritious foods in food insecure communities, but food grown there can also be donated to the Food Shuttle through our Plant a Row for the Hungry program no matter what kind of community the garden is located in!   You can even plan ahead to donate food and plant an extra row, just for the hungry.

Need more inspiration? Here’s  how IFFS volunteer Fred Woodard started his own community garden:

Fred first got involved with IFFS on Martin Luther King, Jr. day about 5 years ago. He was thinking about MLK and being service-oriented, and Fred had always loved to garden. Doing something with food seemed to be a natural fit for him. He wanted to get him and his family up and moving in the community. What better way to do that than through volunteering with the IFFS community gardens, which help build community health, wealth, and security by bringing communities together to eat, grow, cook, share, and move? Fred first started out volunteering in the IFFS Kitchen garden, where students from the Culinary Job Training program harvest fresh herbs and vegetables for their dishes. He began volunteering there soon after the garden’s creation and has helped tremendously in maintaining it. He even helped expand the garden by planting blueberry bushes and a fig tree. He now also runs the vermicomposting operation at the community garden at Alliance Medical Ministry as well.

Enjoying his engagement with the IFFS gardens, Fred decided to start a community garden in another community in which he was already involved – at Lakemont Swim & Tennis Club. He had begun managing the club and started the garden with the hope that having the garden at Lakemont would help people further invest in the community there and make the place feel even more like a community center and not just like a place people could pay to come swim or play tennis. They could build on the existing assets of the swim club – this was a place where people already gathered, and the property had plenty of unused space. The garden at Lakemont had a successful summer! Community members planted, tended to, and enjoyed a bounty of tomatoes, peppers, squash, and other delicious vegetables.

With the help of Bountiful Backyards and in true community fashion, interwoven relationships, Fred has since started another garden – an edible food forest just down the hill from the first garden at Lakemont. It contains a variety of fruit trees and bushes that bloom at different times of the year, maintaining different insect populations. In Fred’s “Dream Garden” vision, the garden and edible food forest at Lakemont will one day connect, with cultivated gardens spreading down the hillside along a path from one to the other.

Fred's Edible Forest - a hearty kiwi plant vine grows on the swingset

compost at the edible forest and the path from the Lakemont community garden

One of our volunteers recently went above and beyond to help the Food Shuttle.  Since last spring, Edna Kaufman has volunteered with the Food Shuttle in a number of capacities, from picking Muscadine grapes at field gleanings to helping sort food and pack backpacks full of nutritious meals for hungry children through our Backpack Buddies program with her colleagues at Progress Energy.  We first met Edna on the farm.  She just stopped by after learning about the farm and wanted to know how she could help.  From that day, Edna jumped right to work volunteering in our farms & gardens and becoming an advocate for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle with her co-workers and civic groups.  Edna is an enthusiastic and engaged volunteer!

This year, in addition to generously donating her time and hard work to our program, Edna decided she wanted to help  in another way. She selflessly decided that this year, instead of receiving birthday and Christmas presents, flowers, or gift cards, she wanted her family and friends to donate to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to help end hunger in our community. Already, Edna has raised more than $500 to support the Food Shuttle through her own fundraising page on our website and through her birthday wish on our Facebook Causes. What an inspiration!  

This holiday season, we are taking a moment to thank Edna and all of our volunteers who work with us  by giving their time and talent to help end hunger in our community.  We are grateful for each and every volunteer this holiday season.  You each are a gift to us.

You can sign up to volunteer here,  donate,  or start your own fundraiser here.

Last Friday at the Food Shuttle farm, we scaled up our vermicomposting operation from wooden bins to a large worm house! Vermicomposting is yet another way to reduce food waste – instead of throwing out our banana peels and food scraps and having them wind up at the landfill, we can compost them and turn them back into soil! The worms eat through the food waste and mixed-in carbons sources, and then the worm castings actually help enrich and improve the soil with microbes and nutrients. This can be used as an organic fertilizer around the farm!

Last Monday, a Learning Disabled (LD) class from PACE Academy participated in a Food Matters activity at Hargraves Community Center in Chapel Hill.  The IFFS Food Matters program offers one-time education activities covering diverse topics including shopping on a budget, tips for healthy cooking, home gardening, seasonal eating, and other nutrition principles. The class had been working in Parks & Recreation of Orange County’s Learning Garden every Monday throughout the fall.  In this Food Matters lesson, the PACE students  got to learn how to make a fresh and tasty meal, using the same types of veggies and herbs the students have been planting and growing in the Learning Garden. They made Veggie Whole Wheat Pizza with Swiss Chard – a healthy spin on an old favorite!

Volunteer Nutritionist Maria Garrido gave the students  a quick interactive lesson on vegetables, whole grain, the benefits of eating local (and how more local can you get than out of your own garden?),  and the importance of eating a balanced diet with appropriate portion sizes.

Volunteer Nutritionist Maria Garrido teaching the group about vegetables

Topics covered included

• The difference between whole wheat and white flour (we used a whole wheat pizza crust)
• What parts of the vegetables we eat (roots, stems, leaves, flowers) and examples of each
• What local means and how it benefits us nutritionally, reduces transportation costs, supports local farmers, provides variety in our diet as the produce varies seasonally, and is good for the environment
• How different colored vegetables help us stay healthy in different ways

Then it was time to make the pizzas! The students got some first-hand cooking experience, guided by Maria. They took turns chopping onions, garlic, and kale, and rolling out the pizza dough. Then the students helped sauté the onions, garlic, and kale together, and top the pizza!

Peeling some garlic

   

Topping the pizzas

Peeling garlic

Stirring the kale, onions, and garlic

When the pizzas were done baking, we had a feast! Along with the freshly baked pizzas, we had a salad – the students had also been growing red leaf lettuce! Some of the students were wary of this healthy veggie whole wheat pizza, claiming only to like pepperoni and cheese pizza on white bread crusts. “I don’t like vegetables,” some claimed. Despite these initial hesitancies, they soon gobbled up the entire meal, declaring it delicious. They were surprised how good healthy can taste, and many even wanted seconds! What a difference learning new ways to prepare vegetables can make!

Feasting!

Veggie Whole Wheat Pizza with Swiss Chard

More photos on Flickr!