Deanna Turner trained at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in San Francisco, and worked at a chef at the upscale Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs before deciding that there were people who needed her culinary artistry more. The 57-year-old Turner, known as Mama Dee to the many who love her, runs the kitchen at the Comitis Crisis Center in Aurora, Colo., serving homeless veterans, runaway teens, and others living in poverty, providing shelter for them in a barracks once used by Fitzsimmons Army Hospital.
Mama Dee marinates and seasons the food with the same care she took when she cooked for paying customers, and pays attention to the presentation of the food on the plate. She remembers the food preferences of each child she serves, making them feel special. “The minute you start to treat a kid like an institutional kid, they start to think of themselves as an institutional kid, and they start to act like an institutional kid,” James Gillespie, the development director of the crisis center told Joey Bunch of the Denver Post.
Mama Dee told Bunch, “Some of these people don’t get a meal for two or three days, so when they get here, I want to make sure it’s good. No matter what they’ve been through, when they get here they’re eating five-star. I can do that for them.” For her work, her town has honored her with the “Amazing Auroran” award.
MORE: How 40 Pounds of Leftover Broccoli Sparked A Farm-Friendly Innovation
Tag: hunger
How 40 Pounds of Leftover Broccoli Sparked a Farm-Friendly Innovation
After a farmer’s market last year, Bloomfield Farms of Sonoma County, Calif. had 40 pounds of organic broccoli left that would soon spoil if it wasn’t used. According to Danielle Venton of High Country News, the farm’s general manager, Nick Papadopoulos, quickly posted a message to Facebook: “We’d love to get this produce to you at a bargain price – who’s in? Text me.” Minutes later, the broccoli found new customers. This experience sparked Papadopoulos’ idea for CropMobster, a start-up that uses social media to prevent food waste and organize donations to food pantries from California growers. CropMobster aids in the organization of gleanings, posting calls for volunteers on its website and through its free app. On January 16, volunteers picked 792 pounds of Satsuma tangerines, which they delivered to seven California food pantries. CropMobster also aims to support farms by helping them sell excess meat and produce at a discount—recent offers include half-price organic beef bones and a bargain on three rams a family farm is looking to sell as it switches its focus to grass-fed beef. So far, CropMobster has saved about 110,000 pounds of produce and generated more than $50,000 in revenue for farmers. Papadopoulos and other volunteers update the CropMobster website from a converted turkey barn on Bloomfield Farms, keeping them close to their agricultural roots even as they focus on technology.
MORE: Why One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Fertilizer
Feeding the Needy in Paradise: Hawaii Brings Farmers’ Markets Right to Their Door
Hawaii may be paradise for vacationers, but not all locals are living the resort life. As in the other 49 states, Hawaii has its share of residents suffering from food insecurity and relying on food stamps to survive. So, in Honolulu, the GreenWheel Food Hub is working with farmers’ markets, like the Kuhio Park Terrace market in Kalihi, to make healthy, local foods available to residents enrolled in SNAP. Like similar programs, GreenWheel allows people to use EBT cards to purchase “Green Bucks,” which can then be used at almost any vendor at the farmers’ market. It’s a great way to increase families’ access to locally grown produce, fueling bodies and communities alike, but GreenWheel doesn’t stop there. It’s also building “micro markets” to bring healthy options directly to people who can’t get to the farmers’ market themselves, like those living in low-income housing in more remote areas or people with mobility challenges residing in senior living facilities.
The Restaurant Without a Cash Register
The phrase “soup kitchen” doesn’t exactly ooze comfort. Getting meals to the homeless or hungry is usually a bare-bones affair, involving the most inexpensive food and all the ambiance of a basement cafeteria. But walking into a soup kitchen run by Masbia, a group founded in 2005 and now operating three store fronts across Brooklyn and Queens, feels different. The food is fresh, cooked by chef Ruben Diaz and volunteers, and meals incorporate donations from city farmers’ markets and local CSAs. There’s art on the walls. The chairs don’t fold. It looks like a restaurant, and it is—one where nobody has to pick up the check themselves.
Masbia say they served nearly 800,000 meals in 2013, and are on pace to hit 1 million this year. The food is kosher—the founders are Hasidic Jews, and the first store front opened in Boro Park, a primarily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood—but people of all creeds are welcome. Many of the volunteers preparing the food are patrons, who work a few hours and then take their meals with employees. But while volunteers help, private donations are what keep the doors open, making up much of the year’s $2 million operating budget.
When NationSwell video editor Jacob Templin visited Masbia recently, he found that almost everyone he spoke to said this was the only soup kitchen they had visited. And perhaps it’s not so surprising: Dignified surroundings, and healthy, comforting meals, raise Masbia above the standard, a welcome reminder that seeking help with food doesn’t have to be a gloomy affair.
Hungry Families in Vermont Are Getting Help From the Last Place You’d Expect
At first glance, the 1,800 square-foot Salvation Farms facility in Vermont seems like any other produce-packing site. But it’s part of a prison, and the nine men who cleaned and packed nearly 70,000 pounds of potatoes there last year are inmates. The food was all would-be waste, but thanks to Salvation Farms, it went to 270 food banks around the state. The program is proving valuable for the corrections department, too, providing service to the hungry while giving prisoners a productive outlet. The program has drawn support from state government officials and private donors alike.
Why You Should Care About a Crop You’ve Never Heard Of
When it comes to food, variety is as important on farms as it is on dinner tables. Growing different types of food together preserves soil health and helps crops grow. But with biodiversity declining and about a third of the world’s plant diversity on pace to disappear by 2050, groups like FoodTank are working to make sure that a wider variety of plants go into the ground. Enset, a lesser-known crop related to bananas, is one such candidate for biodiversity, packing a nutritional punch while also proving valuable for clothing, shelter and medicine in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Harvests in the U.S. and elsewhere could help reduce global hunger and improve farming.
How $5 and a Plate of Spaghetti Can Change a City
There’s a lot of money in the crowdfunding world. And MealTics is looking to move some of that support into hungry communities that need a financial boost. They’ve combined the crowdfunding model with traditional fundraising to build an opportunity for people to easily turn meals from their favorite local restaurants into donations for local shelters and soup kitchens. Their current campaign to raise 5,000 spaghetti dinners from Rino’s Restaurant, outside Philadelphia, takes just a $5 donation from diners, and it’s starting to catch on.
Community Groups Guarantee $5 Bags Filled With Local Fruits and Veggies
Healthy foods can be prohibitively expensive, but not every fresh produce provider is a moneymaker. In Weatherford, Texas, just west of Fort Worth, the Rotary Club and Weatherford Christian School (WCS) have developed programs to share low-cost fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables with the public. With 15 items in each bag, the $5 price tag means that the groups often lose money the deal, and they make up the cost “passing the hat” among members. The programs have become popular over the past few months, especially since the re-usable bags make the bargain even more attractive. For the WCS program, the environmentally friendly bags don’t just draw in more people, they also fuel a fundraising effort to serve nearby hungry populations. Parents can purchase unused bags and the proceeds go toward the school’s weekly Meals on Wheels route.
New “Mobsters” Are Feeding the Hungry and Cutting Food Waste
Successful farmers must have as much business sense as any corporate executive. As with any business, profits are crucial, but an agricultural surplus isn’t the same as an economic surplus. Instead, when farmers have produce that doesn’t sell, it quickly turns to waste. Nick Papadopoulos, a farmer whose resume includes professional work in conflict resolution, turned that food waste problem into a food access solution. He went online and, like many grocery stores might, advertised his extra items at reduced rates. Gleaners in Sonoma County who seek out food for food pantries and low-income housing residents, responded positively, and a non-profit called CropMobster was born. Papadopoulos put his conflict-resolution spin on the model, seeing his work as resolving the competition between the premium prices that farmers need to charge and the minimal budgets available for solving hunger problems.
Chef Fixes the Food Bank by Creating Healthy Meals for Four
The long lines were getting longer at the Capital Area Food Bank, and volunteers noticed a growing sense of hopelessness. Even when people came to the food bank for healthy foods, reports indicated that they were taking the fruits and vegetables home, only to fry or “shower” the produce with salt. Kate Sherwood, the executive chef of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, accepted the challenge of creating nutritious, enticing meals, for under $8 for four people. Her attitude was a fresh one–“You can’t get to healthy without delicious”–but her approach is scientific and data-driven. She comes up with a meal and tests it out with the food bank. She edits the recipe when necessary. And when it’s successful, she adds the recipe to an online database and prints cards in English and Spanish to distribute at more than 500 local agencies. It’s turning into an engaging local movement; the outreach goes as far as store cash registers and bags of donated items.
[Image: Capital Area Food Bank]