Closing Ceremony

The last couple days of Food for Thought were spent in a whirlwind of preparation for the final dinner and final jeopardy for the youth. After a menu was devised, we went to each of the CSA's to make sure we were using as much local, organic produce as possible. Then the youth split into groups and set about chopping, sauteing, blending, and baking up a feast, putting to use some of the skills they had learned in cooking class.

Everything came together beautifully, and we had a huge group of parents, brothers and sisters, and friends who came out to support our youth and their accomplishments this summer.

After dinner, we handed out awards to those youth who went above and beyond the call of duty, whether in the field or in the classroom. Additionally, each participant recieved a certificate of completion. Finally, the ceremony closed with an artistic rap, written and performed by intern Will Guinan, which spoke of the lessons learned from this fantastic 5 week program.

Thank you to everyone who made this program possible! And to the students, we look forward to seeing you next year!

Mock Interviews with the Business Class

Our students are learning business skills and the very important skill of interviewing. In class, we worked on potential interviewing questions that a candidate may encounter when on an interview. The students shared potential answers and worked on their individual skills and work history. In addition, we studied a company's website to become familiar with researching who you are applying to for a job. In addition, we formed questions for the interviewer. THEN, the big day. Each group is actually going thru an interview with Human Resource people, in an effort to make them comfortable for any real life situation they encounter. The first group made it thru with flying colors...group 2 is going through it today.....updates to follow!

Staff members make lunch

Fulfilling our promise to reward the youth for working so hard on the lunch menus, the staff cooked up a fine lunch of tortellini or penne with either red or pesto sauce, garlic bread, bruschetta, and for dessert, zucchini bread or carrot cake.

Yum!

What's in a healthy lunch?

Tuesday, we discussed the Food Pyramid. We split into groups to design a school lunch menu that included at least one vegetarian meal. All meals had to be nutritious, of course, and be made from ingredients you could find locally in season. Today, the staff announced that as a reward, they would make us lunch from the winning menu. On Monday, they will be serving spaghetti with sauce, pesto, and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for lunch.

-Green Intern Paula

Food Security

This week's theme is Food Security, and throughout the week we will approach the topic in a variety of different ways - through discussions, games, movies, and activities. Today in breakout groups we defined food security and learned a little bit about what that means on both a local and global scale. After lunch, we also talked about what are some threats to food security. At the end of the day, each individual was asked to describe their interpretation of food security based on what he or she had learned. As always, our students got creative, with not only definitions but word pictures, poetry, and even cartoons.

Charlestown Farm

Today at Charlestown we helped all of our fellow farmers with the process of weeding blueberries. For how good the blueberries tasted, it was worth getting stuck by prickers or hassling strong weeds . Nature is so full of surprises... you just have to go out and see them. Other than that, everybody had a good time, and worked as a team to get the job done!

-Green Intern Harold

Field trip to Reading Terminal

Well a group of us went on a trip to the Reading Terminal Market. It was a very eventful trip. When we first got there we sproke to a market stand manager and we asked questions about what he does. Then we split into groups of 4 or 5 and went on a hunt to search for different stands. Next after we finished the hunt we got lunch and ice cream and then went back to the school. And to say that was my first time there, I wouldn't mind going back!

-Green Intern Britnee Epps