Pictured: Students chop peppers for a chili recipe.
In January, we brought our cooking program to Troy School, where students participating in the Revitalizing Troy Teen Committee have been feeding their community. Each week, a group of 8th graders learned to prepare wholesome dishes using locally gleaned produce. Over the 6 week program, the students prepared and donated 174 meals to community members, including shepherd’s pie, sweet potato chili with cornbread, and vegetable lo mein. These meals made great use of locally grown onions, carrots, and potatoes gleaned by Salvation Farms.
During one of the program sessions, a community member in North Troy made an appearance to express gratitude for the meals to our class. He shared, “I just wanted to say thank you for all of the meals, they have all been excellent. I also wanted to say that I never really liked squash, even as a kid, but I would always try it anyway because we had it in our garden. I never liked it – even with brown sugar – but I loved the squash recipe you made, it was so delicious, and I realized that you can cook it with other things – it doesn’t have to be just plain squash. So now I’m trying to eat squash more regularly because I know it’s good for you, and it grows well here. It’s just a matter of how it’s prepared!”
Revitalizing Troy is a recent initiative to engage teens and community members in building community in North Troy. They aim to increase opportunities for local residents through events, community meals, improved infrastructure, and civic engagement. We were happy to partner with Revitalizing Troy to provide students with this opportunity to enhance local food security, mitigate local food waste, and learn important kitchen skills.
A student who participated in the Troy cooking program reflected on the experience: “I didn’t expect the class to be like this, I don’t know what I expected, but this is actually super cool,” and later asked “can we use tofu again?!”
