You're Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies - At Boys & Girls Club Venice

[slideshow] Thanks to Jolly Llama for sponsoring one of our "You're Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies" healthy food tastings at the Boys & Girls Club Venice this week.  It was great to take our Youth Leaders across town to connect with the kids who take advantage of the many after-school activities the BGCV has to offer.  What a smart and fun crew of kids at the BGCV!

And from here, we'll let the pics, above, and the report-back from our BGCV contact tell the story:   "The kids had such a great time. Teens can be a tough crowd at times, but you were amazing with them. They were so involved and engaged. All of them stayed well beyond the time their class finished at the club and many left talking about what they tasted and learned." Woot! - for our Youth Leaders, Celia and Ana, who helped host this tastings and YAY for the fresh veggies!

If YOU want to sponsor one of our "You're Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies" tastings for youth OR adults where you live, work, or go to school, just drop us a line! rootdownla [at] gmail [dot] com

You're Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies - at Jefferson High

Once again this week, I was stopped in the Jefferson High School parking lot by another school employee, Elena Barreras, who wanted to let me know how DELICIOUS the latest "nasty veggie" dish from our after school cooking club was.

Elena told us JUST what we love to hear - that RootDown LA took a veggie she usually avoids (cauliflower in this case) and turned it into something she wanted to eat again after having tried it the RootDown LA way.  Our Entrepreneurial Program Manager, Ledette Gambini, went out on a limb to introduce to our team this new recipe, including not just the strange-O veggie, cauliflower, but also a less common grain, quinoa (keen-wah is how we say it).  While it was a bit tricky to convince the kids who DON'T regularly work with RootDown LA to taste these less familiar foods, our own after school club members were brave enough to taste the dish and they LIKED it!

RootDown promotes peace and veggies at the LAURA Unity Parade

[slideshow] RootDown LA Youth Leaders took full command today, sampling veggies at the 4th annual LAURA Unity Parade.  Congrats to our  senior Youth Leaders, Andres Chopin, Jonathan Galindez, and Ana Torres, who for the first time, completed an event without RootDown staff members.  Our goal of having youth led healthy food programming, by the youth we train,  is happening sooner than we'd hoped!

And what did we accomplish?  WE GOT PEOPLE TO EAT THEIR VEGGIES! People were CROWDING around the table once they got a taste of our homemade ranch dressing and simply sauteed zucchini.  We overheard people saying they wanted to replace their cookie snacks with the bell peppers and ranch, and they were going to make the zucchini at home.

We were proud to be invited to take part in this event, which promotes peace in the South LA community; L.A.U.R.A. is a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of the residents of South Central Los Angeles.  They work to empower youth, victim-survivors, and their families through civic awareness, facilitating community collaboration, and bringing resources to the community.

We were honored to be asked to come and cook the veggies that can help keep people free from the high rates of obesity and diabetes in our community.