Farm, Cook, Eat is a free program offered by the Dickinson College Farm that teaches kids about eating healthy, local food. Class topics include table manners, kitchen safety, sustainability, the benefits of eating nutrients and fiber and preparing and cooking a wide variety of food. We will take unhealthy foods and make healthy (and still tasty) equivalents. Sweet potato chips, anyone? We will make dishes using food from local farms and take a field trip to the Dickinson College Farm—the perfect place to teach children where food comes from. During each class, students will prepare a dish that they will enjoy together. Sometimes, they will make food that they can take home and share with the entire family!
Starting in Fall 2012, Farm Cook Eat officially kicked off with 15 first-graders at Carlisle’s Bellaire Elementary. In Spring 2013, the class will be made up of 12 third-graders at Bellaire.
October 1, 2012: Farm, Cook, Eat
Dickinson Magazine
Tony Moore
“From its cutting-edge sustainability practices to its longtime relationship with regional food bank Project SHARE, the Dickinson College Farm—begun as an experiment in organic gardening in 1999—has long been a tangible local, regional and national presence. And under the guidance of Director Jenn Halpin, new programs continue to take root, including its latest community-outreach effort: Farm, Cook, Eat.”
Oren Richkin, Dickinson College Class of ’15 (upper right)
Farm Cook Eat Leader: Oren Richkin – Dickinson College ’15
Oren is currently a sophomore at Dickinson College where he is majoring in Environmental Studies. He has been interested in food and what it does to the body since he was in first grade! His first memory of cooking is heating up a pea next to a stove burner while his mom was cooking dinner. Oren has worked in a restaurant kitchen, helped to teach a cooking class similar to FCE, served as an archery instructor at a summer day-camp, plays the ukulele, and is First Aid and CPR certified. At home, he has a 100-pound black lab named “Bubba” and three chickens named: “Yolkie,” “Soufflé” and “Omelette.”
Interested in starting your own after school healthy cooking and eating program? Check out the following resources for more ideas and inspiration:
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cooking skills course, designed for high school students and educators.
More pictures from Farm, Cook, Eat!
