The Northfield Middle School edible garden has officially been built, with the generous support and funding from Kitchen Garden Laboratory! Sitting beside the tennis courts at the school are two 4’ x 8’ raised beds filled with freshly planted veggies. In these beds, we are growing everything from chives to zucchini to eggplant.To celebrate the planting and get excited for the summer, we hosted a Garden Kickoff this past Monday. With Carleton students, faculty and community members in attendance, this was a wonderful gathering.  Together, we shared our excitement for the garden, finished some mulching and enjoyed a few snacks. Some people even spruced up their pita and hummus with fresh herbs from the garden—what we like to call, our ‘first harvest’. Thanks to all who came!

This summer, the garden will be used in the Northfield Middle School program, Summer Blast. 7^th and 8^th graders will have the opportunity to help take care of the garden and enjoy the produce. We look forward to a summer of gardening and will keep you updated on how it goes!

Gardner Pilot Academy, MA (2015)

During the summer of 2015,  our curriculum will be used in a weekly summer camp for middle school youth at Gardner Pilot Academy, a community school that aims to provide quality learning and social opportunities for our diverse student body, engage families, and offer health and community services through innovative programs and partnerships. The program is run in collaboration with the Harvard School of Applied Science and Engineering (SEAS), at the newly built HarvardX Education portal in Allston, Boston.

Today was a great day in Young Chefs, because we had the wonderful opportunity to travel from Northfield to Minneapolis to host a class for the Indian Health Board as part of their Diabetes Prevention Program. The Indian Health Board (IHB) of Minneapolis is a community health clinic that provides for the health needs of the American Indian community living in Minneapolis. IHB provides medical and dental care and counseling services to more than 7,000 patients each year in the heart of Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood.

Today, four of our volunteers from  Young Chefs hosted a class about legumes. As a spin-off of the Nitrogen lesson plan, our class focused on the many benefits of legumes for our health and environment, and how to prepare legumes in creative, delicious, and nutritious ways. To illustrate this, we made four different kinds of hummus: chipotle black bean, lemon white bean, garbanzo tahini, and lentil valbreso feta. The food was wonderful in many ways, but it was especially great to share knowledge and skills with a new group of people. We are excited to continue this collaboration in the future.

More exciting things are underway. This time it’s a fun development for the summer. Together with formed White House Pastry Chef Bill Yosses, Young Chefs will host a number of training workshops for NYC public school teachers at the NYC Summer STEM institute. Funded by the Mayor’s office the GE foundation, the NYC Summer STEM institute brings together hundreds of select middle school and high school teachers from all across NYC to learn about innovative approaches to STEM education. Specifically, the institute aims to:

• Develop an awareness of different approaches to STEM education
• Build their leadership capacity to support STEM education within their school communities
• Build an ongoing theme-based collaborative community of schools to support STEM education

Working with Bill Yosses, Young Chefs will host daily sessions for the entirety of the event, from July 7-9, bringing its innovative hands-on cooking and science curriculum to one of the biggest school districts of the nation. Read more about the institute HERE.