FoodCorps is a national non-profit –for which Slow Food USA is a founding partner–that addresses our nation’s painful and costly childhood obesity epidemic using a three recipe ingredient for change: hands-on nutrition education, growing and tending school gardens, and getting healthy local food onto school cafeteria trays. FoodCorps’ first year of service is winding down, but recruitment for next year’s class of service members begins this week. To celebrate FoodCorps’ first year, we give you a glimpse of what it might be like to be a service member through the eyes of current member, Robyn Wardell.
If reading Robyn’s story piques your interest, you can read more on the FoodCorps website: www.foodcorps.org, or watch their recruitment video (produced by Ian Cheney, co-creator of King Corn!) below:
The deadline for applications is March 25th.
A Day in the Life of a FoodCorps Service Member
by Robyn Wardell, serving at the Crim Fitness Foundation in Flint, MI
7:30 Wake up to my first alarm. Hit snooze.
7:35 Hit snooze again.
7:40 Hit snooze again…
8:00 Actually get out of bed
8:30 Head to the Crim Office to check e-mails and plan lessons.
10:00 Speak with farmer in Davison about supplying sweet corn and carrots to Flint school cafeterias.
10:30 Head over to Freeman to check up on the status of the newly-built hoophouse and hope the door won’t be stolen and or completely broken this time.
11:00 Teach lesson to Mr. Brown’s 6th grade class about food systems and how that relates to their school lunches. Plan a video project where students will interview one another about their feelings on their school meals to learn about how to form unbiased questions, edit video, and articulate what they’d like to get out of the food they eat.
12:00 Eat my own lunch and think about the systems that brought it to me.
12:30 Head to Eisenhower Elementary to plant spinach and lettuce with Ms. Walsh’s and Ms. Barker’s 2nd graders in the greenhouse. Try and get them to refrain from throwing snowballs at the building on their way to and from the greenhouse.
3:30 Head back to the Crim to pick up supplies for Scott Elementary after school program.
5:00 Meet up with 15 1st-3rd graders at Scott and convince them that kale is the best thing ever and that kale chips are even more delicious than potato chips. Make kale chips. Revel in the fact that they love them.
6:00 Head on home.
