Bettering Baltimore with More Than a Meal
WMAR2 News - Kelly Swoope
BALTIMORE — A police search helicopter scouring the skies, boarded up vacants lining the streets. This could be any Baltimore neighborhood.
"We felt like the children were crumbling with the buildings. They were left to be forgotten."
Welcome to Southwest Baltimore, where tucked away in the shutdown Samuel F.B. Morse elementary you'll find The Food Project.
"The community knows that this is their space, so there's a lot of pride."
The kitchen cafeteria turned community center is serving up a full plate.
The Food Project provides opportunities for Baltimore's youth
by Lisa Robinson of WBALTV Ch11
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/the-food-project-opportunities-baltimore-youth/29023967
A program in Baltimore is giving young people a place to make money and stay off the streets.
The Food Project brings cooking restaurant skills, mentorship and job opportunities to young people in southwest Baltimore.
When 11 News visited, Demonta Palmer, 23, and Alfonso Austin, 19, were making Seedy Nutty, a treat containing peanuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds and more.
"We can take Seedy Nutty and put it on the map," Austin said.
Seedy Nutty is part of The Food Project, which is located in a closed school that has been re-purposed so the organization could use the kitchen and cafeteria for programming.
Inherit the Earth by Accensions Healthcare
Accensions Healthcare followed 5 youth from The Food Project to understand better what the youth experience living in an underserved community. The results are a film completely in the words of the children that show the need goes beyond food… and the importance of housing, mental health and drug treatment.
[ View Film ]
Baltimore Women Chefs
Baltimore Nonprofit Fuels a Hungry Community With More Than Just Food
Walking into a brand new restaurant always fills us with a sense of excitement and curiosity. I hope the food is good. I wonder if we’ll get a good waiter. I hope the check isn’t too steep at the end of the night.Thoughts start to flood your brain as your stomach growls and you make your way to the table.
My husband and I find our seats at a communal table with a group of strangers and are greeted by the smiling face of 18-year-old Cee-Cee. “Welcome to The Bowl,” she says, holding a mini-clipboard dressed in a Washington Redskins jersey. We quickly learn that this is a Super Bowl-themed restaurant and all the wait staff, considerably younger than your average restaurant workers, are dressed in jerseys and referee-style shirts.
The one-room dining hall is packed and it’s not just because of the great food. This restaurant is a hot spot in the Carrollton neighborhood of Baltimore because of its unique format. Only open on the last Sunday of the month, the menus and themes are always rotating—and it’s totally free. Not to mention, the menu items—like buffalo cauliflower bites, potato skins, mac n’cheese, and fried chicken—are all created and prepared by the children bustling around at the restaurant.
Mayor Pugh's Visit to The Food Project
“On Saturday (January 26th) I had the opportunity to visit The Food Project. I am very proud of the great things they are doing for our youth.” —Mayor Pugh
#baltimore #thefoodproject #mybmore #smallbusiness
Urban Farming for Beginners: Cultivating Shoots
The way in which average Americans live is changing. Trends indicate more and more people are leaving rural areas to live in cities and urban regions instead. Census data confirms this: approximately 80% of Americans now live in and around cities.
Those people still need food. Unfortunately, shipping food from rural farms to urban areas is costly. It can also substantially deplete resources. That’s why urban farms have continued to grow in popularity.
Urban farms are valuable because they provide city-dwellers with reliable local food sources. This reduces the various costs involved in shipping food in from other regions. Additionally, innovations such as hydroponics and aquaponics have substantially improved urban farming methods in recent years. You can use oscillating saw blades or even an electric chainsaw to make a DIY system, but they’re also relatively easy to find online if you’re willing to spend a bit of money.
The Food Project Providing Jobs For Youth In Baltimore
Former Baltimore City Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector knows Baltimore's juvenile crime problem all too well. Days before she left office in 2016, she was carjacked by a pair of teens. But then she became an advocate for her assailants, and now she's helping in an effort to lift up teens in the city's poorest neighborhoods.
"I have had the opportunity to work with the same kids that I was the victim of and now I can't love them more than my own children," Spector told Brett Hollander on Monday.
She's working with Michelle Suazo, executive director of The Food Project. It aims to provide underserved youth with cooking, nutrition, restaurant skills, urban farming experience and mentorship. They're laser-focused, Suazo said, on 21223, Maryland's poorest zip code, and an area of southwest Baltimore including Carrollton Ridge, Franklin Square and Penrose.
Students in the program learn the tools of the restaurant, get snacks on the shelves of Whole Foods and, most importantly, take home a paycheck. That's thanks to grant funding.
"I had five boys I had to turn away," Suazo said. "I would love to have support so that we could hire more youth in the community."
In the zip code, 42.3 percent of children live in poverty, and two-thirds don't live in a two-parent household. Some are even on the streets.
"I'm not sure about cause and effect, but what I am convinced of, quite frankly, Brett, is it's 40, 50 years of bad public policy. Babies having babies. We have kids that cannot go to school because they have not been vaccinated," Spector said. "There's no one to parent them or to guardian them or to guide them, and they come to use because they now have heard that we're a refuge or a sanctuary."
SW Baltimore Youth Assist Chef Kaimana in Serving the Mayor 5 Course Meal
Wednesday 7/11/18 - Baltimore, MD.. U Empower of Maryland’s “The Food Project” hosted a fundraiser featuring celebrity chef Kaimana Chee for a “Sharing & Wine Pairing” event at City Seeds Demo Kitchen located at 1412 North Wolfe St. in East Baltimore. The event raised money to sustain its programs for low-income youth in Southwest Baltimore. The Food Project Youth assisted the Chef in preparing a 5-course meal for the guests and Mayor of Baltimore.
Chef Chee, an O’ahu native, is an alumnus of many television programs including Fox’s MasterChef, as a contestant; and Bravo’s Newlyweds, as a guest Chef. He has won the Smithsonian’s Iron Chef Competition and Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen. Chef Chee is the Head Chef and Owner of Uncle’s Hawaiian Grindz in Fallston, MD.
Southwest Baltimore, where The Food Project is located, has a family poverty rate of 45.9% and a youth poverty rate is 42.3%. The Food Project’s mission is to enhance the lives of the children and families in Carrollton Ridge, one of Baltimore’s most impoverished communities, where over one third of the zip code is in a food desert. “Here at The Food Project we have found that local youths share the desire to contribute positively to their community. As many as 30 of our youth have voluntarily painted and cleaned our facility,” founder Michelle Suazo said.
The Food Project, founded in 2015, is a non-profit organization located in Southwest Baltimore in the former Samuel F. B. Morse Elementary School. It provides multiple culinary, health, and self-sustaining skills to youth in the neighborhood. The organization offers a variety of opportunities including cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs, restaurant concept development, urban farming, healthy literacy, and mentoring.
For more information: http://uempowerofmd.org/the-food-project/
Michelle Suazo (443) 690-1694 michelle@uempowerofmd.org
