Food Sustainability for Youth Patrons of Millvale Community Library
Provide equitable, long-term access to healthy food for youth in Millvale by creating a food pantry, teaching sustainable gardening and cooking skills, and meeting positive role models.
Leader
Susan McClellan
Location
213 Grant Avenue Millvale , PA 15209
About the project
Our project aims to develope a long-term, sustainable food pantry to serve the youth patrons of the Millvale Community Library.
Many of our youth patrons lack access to healthy food options after school and during the summer months - Millvale is a food desert, and 48% of children living in Millvale live below the poverty line. The Millvale Community Library is looking to help serve this population by offering hands-on nutritional education, gardening workshops with our community partners The Gardens of Millvale, cooking and food-prep classes with our neighbors Tupelo Teas, and classes teaching canning and other sustainable storage practices. Our short-term goal is to provide immediate healthy food options for our youth population, both while they are at the library and to take home with them once they leave the library.
Our long-term goal is to develope a culture dedicated to sustainable food practices and healthy, mindful eating. We view our youth population as the future of our community; by teaching them these practices now, they can take this culture home to their families and help act as advocates for healthy/sustainable food practices in the Millvale community at large.
The Steps
*Plant the community garden (late May/early June)
*Organize the pantry/kitchen equipment (early June)
*Advertise programming to the community at large (starting in June)
*Launch classes on growing food/sustainable gardening (July-August)
*Launch nutrition classes (July)
*Launch family cooking classes using food from the garden (late August/early September)
*Launching canning/sustainable food storage classes open to kids and their families (late August/early Septemember)
*Store canned food from gardens in the library's pantry (late August/early Septemeber)
Why we‘re doing it
Based on our recent community needs assessment, about 40% of our current and prospective client families qualify for free or reduced school lunches. In addition, Millvale is a food desert, with the only suppliers of food being a Sunoco gas station and a Family Dollar store. We want the Millvale Community Library to serve as a resource for sustainable/healthy food practices for both the youth population and the community at large. This starts by developing a long-term program which we can sustain overtime through developing best practices.