It’s a Thursday afternoon at the Ceres Community Project kitchen.
Half a dozen teens are busy putting the final touches on an array of gourmet meals destined for individuals and families dealing with a life threatening illness such as cancer. For these clients – many of whom have no other support – the meals can mean the difference between subsisting on crackers and peanut butter or being nourished with beautiful and delicious whole foods that are prepared with love.
Over the course of a year, more than 100 teens from dozens of Sonoma County schools spend time in the Ceres Community Project kitchen. They gain cooking skills, learn about the health benefits of locally grown whole foods, and experience the enormous satisfaction of giving to others.
Working together, these remarkable young people prepare 25,000 beautiful, delicious and nourishing meals annually, supporting hundreds of families during a time of enormous stress in their lives.
Free of charge and delivered directly to clients’ homes by our team of Delivery Angels, these meals provide vital nutrition along with the healing knowledge that others care.
Teen chefs Ellen and Amy cooking in the Ceres kitchen.
What and how we eat is one of the most fundamental ways that we support our body and yet in growing numbers we are eating in ways that compromise our health. Few of our young people are learning how to cook, leaving them dependent on fast and packaged food. And when we are sick, preparing healthy meals often falls by the wayside because we are too exhausted or too stressed to cook.
Food, especially fresh, local and organic food, connects us as well to the larger web of life on which we are ultimately dependent. When we harvest greens from the garden, talk with a farmer at the farmers’ market, or prepare a meal from fresh local food we feel this interdependence and are empowered to act in ways that preserve and protect our precious planet.
But even more than all this, food expresses our love and caring for one another. When we cook for others, we experience the richness of giving and begin to find the deeper meaning of our lives. When someone cooks for us, we feel supported and held in ways that are often beyond words.
The Ceres Community Project is weaving together these threads to nourish those who are ill, empower our young people, strengthen our relationship with local food, and build bridges of connection between all parts of our community.
We hope you will join us.
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