Here’s an Upstate New York recipe to try:

• Take New York State’s third largest city with approximately 210,600 people from diverse cultures and backgrounds
• Sprinkle in a generous portion of local food enthusiasm (Rochester is the home of the Public Market, America’s Favorite Farmer’s Market in 2010, and the “birthplace” of Wegmans grocery chain)
• Stir in economic dichotomies (major industries, such as Kodak, started in Rochester, but currently about 26% of the population lives below the poverty line).
• Add a dollop of the national obesity epidemic linked to lack of time to prepare fresh food.
• Finally top with the fortitude to brave even the coldest and snowiest of winters.
• When you lift the lid, you’ll see the Rochester, NY served by Foodlink.

Currently Foodlink, the regional food bank for 10 counties in Central and Western New York, provides emergency food to nearly 125,000 different people every year. Through a network of 450 agencies, including soup kitchens, food pantries, and shelters, Foodlink distributes over 11 million pounds of food. Our afterschool Kids Cafe program serves nutritious meals to nearly 3,000 children at approximately 50 locations every day.

The number of food insecure people in our region is high. The Hunger Study, conducted in 2010 in conjunction with Feeding America, indicates that 69% of Foodlink’s clients experience food insecurity. Within the Rochester city school district, the percentage of children eligible for free and reduced priced meals is 88%. Ongoing struggles for jobs and systemic budget cuts have changed the face of hunger. Those with college degrees and years of work experience are now finding it difficult to put food on the table.  More people than we think are forced to choose between buying food, heating their homes, or paying medical bills.

As the newest Share our Strength partner, we at Foodlink are pleased and excited to bring Cooking Matters to our region. The curriculum of Cooking Matters and the mission of Share our Strength complement the vision of Foodlink- to build a hunger-free community and sustainable regional food system. One of the central tenets of Foodlink is to empower individuals with the tangible skills, through nutritional and agricultural programs, to lead healthy and productive lives.

The Cooking Matters curriculum provides the opportunity to foster relationships and knowledge throughout our community. Within our network of agencies we work with Salvation Armies, churches, recreation centers and many other community organizations that serve adults and children.  We are eager to begin the process of pairing our long time partners with nutrition experts and increase awareness about healthful eating habits while building skills in the kitchen.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the children’s classes. Having taught nutrition at our Kids Cafes for the past 9 months, I’ve seen firsthand how cooking engages kids.  The goal is to conduct 16 classes in our first year and to evenly divide those classes between child and adult programs.

This is definitely a case where, if the pot boils over it’s a good thing. Foodlink is starting to plan for volunteer trainings and the first class!  We are adding the spice to the Rochester pot.

As all the various ingredients come together to form a sublime mixture, we can only hope one taste won’t be enough!

Rochester area educators, food service professionals, and administrators are invited to participate in an evening of brainstorming and collaboration to address and work on creative solutions to a problem that is relatively unique to this generation: how to empower our children to make informed food choices. Teachers from the Rochester area are invited to meet from 4 to 6:30pm on Thursday, February 17th at Rochester Contemporary Art Center (137 East Avenue, between Scio & Gibbs Sts) to engage in a guided brainstorming session to tackle this issue. We want to hear your voice!

Please RSVP to Derek Crowe (contact below) no later than Feb. 8th if you plan on attending.

THIS EVENT IS BEING SUBMITTED THROUGH THE RCSD HEALTH DEPTARTMENT TO COUNT TOWARD YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT HOURS, PENDING REVIEW.

<< What is this?

Freshwise Farms, a social enterprise of Foodlink, is interested in establishing a farm to school program with Rochester area schools. Farm to school is a nation-wide movement that encourages small-scale, local action by bridging gaps between local farms and schools. It unites the community, cafeteria, and classroom by bringing students and lessons to farms while encouraging healthy eating by helping schools source food from local farmers.

We recognize that your input is necessary – this program cannot succeed without it. In the end, it will be the students who design and shape their farm to school program, so the first step in this process is hearing from you; the guardians of their education. You need no prior understanding of farm to school to participate in this evening. Your perspective as an educational professional is what we’re looking for – we need your expertise regarding current educational standards and ideal best practices for integrating agriculture, nutrition, and food systems awareness into our children’s education.

<< What to Expect

• You will be required to commit to attend the event on February 17th from 4:00 to 6:30pm.
• You will be invited to eat some delicious hors d’oeuvres.
• We will ask that you fill out a short bio sheet.  (to be distributed upon RSVP)
• You will be divided into teams of 6.
• You will experience the process of ideation, details of which will be explained soon! (it’s exciting, we promise)
• Your team will create a SHORT presentation outlining the problem as you see it and some of your ideas to be presented to the group.

<< Why Participate?

• Your ideas will have a real impact with social, educational, political and radical results. This evening is the initial phase in a long term plan for building a farm to school program in Rochester.  We will use your input to shape the next event; a charrette in which your students will have the opportunity to design the farm to school program.
• Tackle a real-world problem in a unique way.
• Hear farmers and farm-to-school experts from around the region talk about the problem.
• Be part of shaping the future of this region.
• Work with professionals from other schools in the area.
• Earn professional development hours. (pending review)

If you are interested in learning more, watch this video to explore more about farm to school or contact:

Derek Crowe at dcrowe@foodlinkny.org or (585) 328-3380 x157.

Be sure to watch this site for more updates! Also, if you have ideas or feedback for this event, just email Derek!

This event is called a charrette (pronounced [shuh-ret]), and consists of an intense design-based collaborative project. Charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution through interdisciplinary collaborative work, integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. You can go to http://www.vimeo.com/9541807 to access a video documenting a previous charrette on which this meeting structure/form will be based, hosted by COLAB at Syracuse University. *note: this video serves to outline the structiure of a charrette, we will not be discussing ‘bright flight’ at this event.

Wednesday at the Capitol Area Food Bank in Washington D.C., Sesame Workshop & various partners unveiled “Sesame Street tackles food insecurity crisis through ‘Food for Thought: Eating Well on a Budget.”  (Check out background details and coverage of the event by Obama Foodorama and AOL news.) What can we expect from this program, and how will it impact Foodlink’s 10 counties in upstate NY? I visited the site myself to see what it was all about.

Elmo, SuperGrover & the new Superfood Muppets

The easy-to-get-to site (www.sesamestreet.org/food) features videos, games, workbooks, downloads, new SuperFoods Muppets, Elmo trying a kiwi, and real family stories about coping with food insecurity. Playlists such as Healthy Snacks features Cookie Monster’s now infamous reversal: “Cookies are a Sometimes Food;” Try New Foods beckons viewers to “Try It! / Prueba!” and Let’s Eat Together features interactive games to help Momma and Baby Bear make a “tewiffic owange smoothie.”

One of my favorite segments was a longer one: Healthy Food on a Budget,  a video clip on Food for Thought’s main page, which highlights a variety of families dealing with the recent economic downturn, and how they cope with the difficulty to obtain food and resulting emotions. Children and parents take viewers along as they depend on food pantries, food stamps, following a budget and shopping seasonally and locally. Check out the “Sizzle Reel,” a shorter version embedded below, for an overview of available content.

 Food for Thought, “a multimedia program designed to help support families who have children between the ages of 2 and 8 and are coping with uncertain or limited access to affordable and nutritious food,” is chock full of quality information and resources, thanks to a stellar advisory team of food insecurity experts from Feeding America, Headstart, WIC, Meals on Wheels, and world-class institutions such as Cornell University. (PDF list of advisors).

“Seventeen million American children—nearly one in four—are food insecure, meaning they do not receive food that meets basic nutritional needs due to financial instability.  Of these children, more than half (9.6 million) are under the age of six.” (Official press release) Foodlink’s service area is no different. I’m thankful for this new resource, the attention that food insecure families are receiving, and hopeful that these resources will encourage more families in our 10 counties (and across the country!) that it is possible to eat well on a budget.

-Rachel Staver, RD
Nutrition Resource Manager

p.s. Maybe there is something to the singing-dancing-food-segments that can affect how we think about food when we’re young.  I still remember the blond boy on Sesame Street who sliced and scooped and peeled his way to an amazing fruit salad (watch below), and my co-worker can still bust out Epcot’s Kitchen Kaberet “veggie veggie fruit fruit, veggie fruit!” (documented here: skip to 3:25)
Generation-so-unhealthy-you-won’t-outlive-your-parents, there is hope for you too, thanks, yet again, to Sesame Street. In my humble opinion, the next step for raising the collective awareness of this intiative would be to get Cookie Monster to highlight it when he hosts Saturday Night Live. Perhaps Secretary Vilsack can make a guest appearance as well…

Guess what kids? It’s time for the semi-annual blog post of blog posts! Get excited, because I’ve rounded-up some real gems from my favorite food blogs and packaged ‘em up all nice and pretty for the holiday season.  I’m aiming to start a (fairly sizeable) conversation about the way we relate to our food and its role in our society, so I’d recommend you get your reading pants on for this one.

First: food safety. The Senate passed S.510 Tuesday, a bill that will give more power to the hands of the FDA in establishing and upholding food safety regulations. Marion Nestle over at Food Politics summarizes the bill quite eloquently. There was some fear that a watered-down version of the bill would find its way into the final vote but an amendment (discussed on foodsafetynews.com) was passed that will protect small farms and increase food safety regulations. Foodsafetynews outlines the reactions to S.510’s passage, which are overall fairly positive. For example, Dave Murphy, founder and director of Food Democracy Now!, which promotes sustainable agriculture, said that:

“Passage of the bill… is an historic victory for family farmers and the local food movement.  In overcoming the backlash of agricultural giants who desperately fought to kill these protections for family farmers, the sustainable agricultural movement has shown that it is a political force to be reckoned with. The bill is far from perfect, but the inclusion of these protections guarantees that farmers that sell directly to consumers, farmers markets, grocery stores and restaurants with sales under $500,000 and sell in state or within 275 miles of their farm or facility are exempted from expensive regulations that could drive them out of business.”

One of the most glaring imperfections is that the new bill doesn’t control meat, poultry and eggs. Why? Because the Department of Agriculture regulates them…

Whoa. This is getting heavy, and you’re probably hungry. Check out one of my favorite references, World’s Healthiest Foods, and their article about how to eat healthy at work. Or go to the best recipe blog on the internet and make something delicious.

Or you can enjoy Katie Shelly’s Picture Cook, an awesome cookbook that uses illustrations for directions! (scroll to the right…)

Or you can laugh like crazy with the Eggventures of Eggbert or just stare at some amazing winter photography that have nothing to do with food.

Ok, focus.

Next, I’d recommend a quick look at the amazing Civil Eats blog to learn about the new and interactive Factory Farms Map, hosted by FoodandWaterWatch.com.

And lastly, The Slow Foods USA blog posted that the House recently (yesterday) passed the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act! This had been a long road in securing a healthier lunch for school children across the country so this announcement is pretty much the most exciting thing of the year. Although passed, the bill does have flaws – namely the fact that it calls for a use of SNAP (food stamps) program dollars (which feed hungry kids) to, uh, feed hungry kids. Despite its shortcomings however, it is a huge step forward in the road to nutritional lunches. It calls for more money, stricter nutritional standards, and funding for local sourcing of food – specifically for programs like Farm to School! Sorry Mr. Nugget. But not really…

If these topics are hitting home, visit Change.org’s sustainable food section to learn more about how you can affect change, wherever you are, with whatever you have.

And that’s it! You are now equipped with a gigantic pile of food blogs to stare at and fuel your brain’s stomach.

Enjoy, share, and continue the conversation!

Derek Crowe

AmeriCorps*VISTA

Youth Farm Education Coordinator

So last Thursday was the United Way of Rochester’s Day of Caring.

Taken by Carlos Ortiz for the Democrat & Chronicle

Bria (our Manager of Community Engagement) had just handed me the Day of Caring spreadsheet. How many people would be coming to Foodlink? It looks like 6 different companies signed up to come, with over 150 volunteers. I had no idea what to expect – but I was excited.

Day of Caring was here. As instructed, I donned my Foodlink apparel and pulled up in a little after 7am Thursday morning. (Long after ITT and some of our staff had arrived at 5am for these Channel 13 spots: here and here) “Live United” t-shirts were everywhere. People parking, walking in, smiling, and ready to go. After a last minute blitz to sweep the spare parking lot of broken glass, everyone assembled to receive assignments for the day. Sure enough, over 150 volunteers showed up, united on this day of caring. Soon my team was called – 15 people from Paetec. Enthusiasm started building as we took a quick tour of the warehouse in order to introduce Foodlink to the team, and we headed upstairs to learn about the BackPack program. Positive feelings soon turned to indignation as I explained the story of the BackPack program – an initiative designed to alleviate child hunger on weekends and school breaks.

Childhood hunger? Why do we need this program in upstate NY? I continued to explain how I did not understand that concept when I started coordinating the program last fall. My indifference too turned to indignation after speaking with the teachers in schools who describe witnessing children who rely on school breakfast and lunch come in to school famished on Monday mornings. This apparently struck the hearts of the Day of Caring team as well, motivating them to enthusiastically get to work packing bags for the BackPack program. BackPack bags are Wegmans bags filled with kid-friendly non-perishable nutritious food items which are then delivered to participating school districts to be discretely distributed to children identified by participating school coordinators. Less than four hours later, our team had exhausted our stock of supplies and containers to hold bags – they packed over 1100 bags.

Eleven-hundred backpacks. I couldn’t believe it! Though our arms were tired, spirits were still high as we recognized the amazing work we had completed. You can see more of what we did here: Video & Article (the Democrat and Chronicle came and shot a video which features the Paetec BackPack team!) After lots of high fives, we headed downstairs for some Upstate NY grass fed beef burgers from Freshwise (available at the Lilac Festival this week!).

Thank you especially to our volunteers from Paetec, Kodak,  ITT Geospatial Systems, Excellus, Everest, and Thompson Reuters.
Thank you, Rochester, for Caring.

Rachel Staver, RD.

Everyone has a guilty pleasure.  For some it’s chocolate, for others it’s gossip magazines.  My guilty pleasure is NBC’s The Biggest Loser.  Every Tuesday night from 8pm to 10pm you will find me glued to the TV watching this weight loss show.

For those of you who don’t watch the show, The Biggest Loser is a reality show that challenges and encourages overweight contestants to shed pounds through diet and exercise.  For many people across the country it is more than just prime time entertainment, it is an inspiration.  The show has motivated millions of people to take control of their lives and begin their weight loss journey.

The Biggest Loser is also proactive in the fight against hunger.  Last season the show began a program called the Pound for Pound Challenge.  For each pound a person pledges to lose at www.pfpchallenge .com, 14¢ (the equivalency of one pound of food) will be donated to the participant’s local food bank.  This is a win-win program.  America becomes healthy and simultaneously feeds the hungry.  As of posting time, Rochester had 29,078 pounds pledged by 1,048 people, which put us in 54^th place nationwide, and in 3^rd place in New York.  This is where my competitive spirit kicks in.  Rochester is currently less than 2,000 pounds behind Buffalo in second place, and less than 8,000 pounds away from first place.  Come on Rochester, let’s pledge those pounds!

Tying in with the wellness theme, Foodlink recently started the Eat Well Live Well Challenge created by Wegmans.  The goal of the eight-week program is to encourage individuals to move more and increase the amount of fruits and vegetables consumed.  We are all sporting pedometers to count our steps and we track the fruits and vegetables we eat.  Eat Well Live Well annually reminds some employees (a.k.a. me) of how little physical activity is done during work hours.  It’s tough to tally up 10,000 steps each day when sitting at a desk for 8 hours.  I’m excited if my pedometer shows more than 3,000 steps by the time I get home.  This past Tuesday I found myself walking in place and doing sit-ups while watching The Biggest Loser in order to reach 10,000 steps.

So what am I getting at?  Get moving!  Walk around the office.  Bike through one of Rochester’s great parks.  Go for a run.  Park at the back of the parking lot and stop fighting the little old ladies for the front spots at Wegmans.  The Pound for Pound Challenge and Eat Well Live Well are great programs to help you get healthy and look good in a bathing suit this summer.  Rochester, let’s all be big losers!

Maria Oberst

Resource Development Manager and Biggest Loser Enthusiast

In early March, Rachel and I traveled to Washington, DC for the 2010 Anti-Hunger Policy Conference.  This is an annual gathering hosted by FRAC and Feeding America.   It’s a fantastic opportunity to network with anti-hunger advocates from across the country, including fellow food bankers.   As the keynote speaker, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack emphasized the USDA’s role in ensuring that every child in America has access to nutritious food.  He movingly spoke of his own experience as an orphan, and the ways in which food acted as a replacement for the comfort of family.  His words reminded us of the importance of food—beyond health and nutrition, our daily meals serve as a symbol of safety, of family and relationships, of stability.  A child who faces hunger, or is unsure of when his next meal will be, is robbed of more than just a full stomach.

Secretary Vilsack speaks about childhood hunger

Secretary Vilsack also took the opportunity to promote President Obama’s goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015, by identifying four critical national concerns that should serve as an impetus to reaching this monumental goal:

1.  Health Care Costs: Studies show that hungry children have greater odds of being hospitalized, and the average pediatric hospitalization costs approximately $12,000. In New York, childhood obesity costs the State $242 million in public and private medical expenses each year.

2. Education Reform: A report by Feeding America states that hungry children ages 0-3 years cannot learn as much, as fast, or as well because chronic undernutrition harms their cognitive development during this critical period of rapid brain growth, actually changing the fundamental neurological architecture of the brain and central nervous system. It is well-known that hungry or malnourished children perform worse in school because of lack of preparation and low concentration.

3. Economic Security: FA reports that workers who experienced hunger as children create a workforce pool that is less competitive, with lower levels of educational and technical skills, and seriously constrained human capital,” and that “Child hunger leads to greater absenteeism and turnover in the work environment, all of which are costly for employers. Child sick days are linked to parent employee absences, for instance.”

4. National Security: Currently, an astounding 75% of young Americans (18-24) are unfit for military service.  A leading cause of this “unfitness” is physical condition.  The rising number of young adults who experienced persistent hunger as a youth, or who had one of the chronic illnesses related to food insecurity listed above, has created a dearth of individuals we can rely on to serve and protect our nation.

In front of the Capitol Building. Rachel & I were sporting our "End Childhood Hunger: 2015" pins

The last day of the conference was spent on Capitol Hill.  Rachel and I visited our local representatives—Senators Schumer & Gillibrand, Congresswoman Slaughter, Congressman Lee and Congressman Maffei–to ask for their support for the WIC and Child Nutrition Act that is up for reauthorization this year.  For more information about Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR), visit www.frac.org.  Federal Child Nutrition Programs play a vital role in ending childhood hunger, thereby improving school performance, workforce development, national security and the overall health of our nation. Contact me to learn what you can do to help support CNR!

Be Well,

Julia

Director of Development  & Strategic Initiatives

Foodlink is participating in the 2009 Food and Shelter awards campaign. The campaign was created by GreatNonprofits.org in partnership with Care2, Feeding America, GuideStar, National Alliance to End Homelessness, and the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth in order to promote the work of nonprofits providing food and shelter to those in need.

The Awards will recognize the top-rated nonprofits making a difference in homelessness and hunger based on positive reviews written by clients, donors, partners, community members and anyone wanting and willing to share their experiences.  This is an exciting opportunity for us to not only receive personal stories from you but it will also allow us to make even more of a difference in our community.

If you have had a great experience with Foodlink or just love what we do; you can participate by writing a review at http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/foodlink. The campaign deadline is December 22, 2009.

]]> http://www.foodlinknyblog.org/hunger/2009foodshelterawards/feed/ 0 http://www.foodlinknyblog.org/hunger/jim_kelly_nissan/ http://www.foodlinknyblog.org/hunger/jim_kelly_nissan/#comments Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:37:51 +0000 admin http://www.foodlinknyblog.org/?p=642

What’s the one thing Buffalo Bills fans and Foodlink have in common?  Hope.  To be a true Buffalo Bills fan means having hope for a winning season, or just a win.  Foodlink provides the hope of ending hunger in our community by supplying food to local soup kitchens and food pantries.

Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly autographing footballs for food drive attendees

Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly helped spread this hope during a food drive for Foodlink on October 28^th.  Kelly was a gracious guest as he signed autographs for all attendees.  Mini NFL footballs were provided to the first 150 people who brought a food donation for Foodlink.  Over 300 people attended the event at Ideal Nissan in Irondequoit, and 732 pounds of food were collected for Foodlink. 

Thank you to Jim Kelly and Ideal Nissan for this great drive!

Scott Hetsko of WROC News 8, Rex of the Rochester Rhinos, and Foodlink's Cool Can together at Wegmans for the Fall 2009 Check Out Hunger Kick Off

Local celebrities kicked off Foodlink’s Check Out Hunger Campaign on Monday at the Calkins Road Wegmans.  Area television and radio personalities pitched in as Wegmans Helping Hands during the lunch hour to help pack groceries and encourage customers to scan Check Out Hunger coupons at registers to help end hunger at home. News 8′s Scott Hetsko and Rex of the Rochester Rhinos were two of the celebrities that took part in Monday’s kick off by helping bag some groceries. View a video now at rochesterhomepage.net.

Each year Foodlink’s Check Out Hunger campaign raises vital funds for the food bank to distribute food resources to those in need in our community throughout the year.

Through the Check Out Hunger campaign, customers have the choice to donate $2, $3 or $5 at the check-out.  The goal is to raise over $750,000, which will help meet the increasing demands being placed on area human service agencies.  In 2009, food distributed by Foodlink’s network of agencies provided over five million emergency meals to our neighbors in need at area food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency shelters.

This campaign is critical to supporting our work,” stated Foodlink Executive Director Tom Ferraro. “In this time of economic downturn we are seeing more and more people in need. By adding just a few dollars to your grocery bill, you can make a difference in the lives of our neighbors.”

Foodlink’s Check Out Hunger Campaign runs for five weeks from October 25^th to November 28^th at all area Wegmans stores.  For additional information and online donations please visit www.checkouthunger.org.