Youth Help Fight Hunger
The Passaic County Food Policy Council was pleased to invite New Jersey Community Development Corporation’s (NJCDC) Youth CARES to present their summer project to fight hunger in Paterson. These youth leaders chose to work on addressing hunger as part of their summer service project. They helped build a greenhouse at Green Acres Community Garden and helped promote summer feeding sites across the city. We were inspired by their energy and passion to improve their community.
The youth also stayed and participated in the coalition meeting and were able to learn more about our strategies to expand feeding programs, improve food procurement practices, recruit healthy corner stores, and increase cooking and nutritional knowledge in the community. As a coalition, we have been working tirelessly to expand summer feeding sites and promote them. The students had insightful input in how to better utilize social media to make sure that we were reaching as many people as possible with the information.
Several students expressed interest in continuing to participate in Passaic County Food Policy Council meetings throughout the school year. We are excited to have youth take a more active role in the coalition moving forward.
For more information about the Building a Culture of Health: Blueprint for Action in Passaic County please contact Mary Celis, Director of Health Initiatives, United Way of Passaic County: maryc@unitedwaypassaic.org or visit our Facebook page: @PassaicFood. Please read more about our progress here: Blueprint for Action Progress Report
For more information about the NJCDC’s Youth Cares Program, and to connect with the alumni, click here. Follow all of the Next Generation Community Leaders teams through the hashtag #NJLeaders2030.