A hands-on summer feeding program at the East Whatcom Regional Resource Center
Over the past year, a delicious partnership has been forming between the EWRRC and Common Threads, a Bellingham-based nonprofit that helps kids fall in love with healthy food through hands-on gardening and cooking programs.
Common Threads currently helps kids grow, eat and learn about healthy food at Acme, Harmony, and Kendall Elementary Schools.The partnership with the EWRRC started when staff from both organizations got curious, together, about how to help make sure that kids’ winter, spring, and summer school breaks were rich in activity and nutrients.
In the spring and summer of 2018, Common Threads cooked with kids during Kids Dayz. During the winter holiday, we chose to focus on helping kids figure out how to best prepare delicious, nutritious meals with foods commonly available from the Food Bank. This concept was so well received that we turned it into a four day camp during spring break 2019.
Kids in East Whatcom are hungry for good food and good food experiences! They are so excited for the chance to be learning how to feed themselves well with the foods on hand.
And even more good news – the partnership between Common Threads and the EWRRC just got a whole lot sweeter through the award of a grant Share our Strength’s Test Kitchen: a “concept accelerator” designed to help nonprofits, schools, faith organizations, and local governments turn their best ideas into validated strategies and promising practices. The focus this year is on ending childhood hunger in the summer.
The concept Common Threads pitched is for kids to prepare USDA compliant summer meals (hopefully both breakfast and lunch) from June 17-July 3… a time period designed to dovetail with the Mt. Baker School District’s summer feeding program which begins on July 8 and runs through the rest of the summer.
Are you interested in knowing more about this program – either because you want your kids to participate or because you want to help support it in some way? Feel free to contact us or the EWRRC or and we’ll make sure you’re on our notification list as the details get ironed out!