"Project Food Awareness"

Back in September, we received word that two young gentlemen, Zach and Francisco, were displeased with some of the lunch options at their school. They had created a survey and were reaching out to their peers to figure out a solution. We met with these students and were blown away by their professionalism and passion for food. They were blown away by our commitment to serving healthy, local foods and preparing meals from scratch. From this meeting was born the idea of creating a video project to inform students about the farm to school activities taking place here in Chicopee.

We are extremely excited to announce the launch of Project Food Awareness, which will highlight the work of ChicopeeFRESH through interviews with farmers, food service staff, and community members. Zach St. Laurent and Rachelle Lemieux (the project’s videographer) are the proud creators of this video project, and will be working on it outside of class during the school year. Here is the promotional video for the project, offering a little background for viewers and a preview of what’s to come.

Ryan Harb and I had the pleasure of taking Zach and Rachelle to the farm last Friday to meet and interview our farmer, Joe Czajkowski. Located in Hadley, MA, Czajkowski Farms supplies us with the majority of our local produce throughout the year. It was fantastic to witness the farmers preparing and packaging butternut squash for sale at Trader Joe’s. Can you believe our students eat the same squash that’s sold at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and other supermarkets? Pretty cool stuff! What’s even cooler is that the farm produced over three MILLION pounds of butternut squash this growing season! Amazing!

Zach and Rachelle had an awesome time visiting the farm, and Ryan and I absolutely loved helping out and witnessing firsthand the creativity and passion of these two students. We know that they captured some great footage of the farm, and we can’t wait to see what they come up with next! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more updates about #ProjectFoodAwareness! And in the meantime, check out our photo gallery and the slideshow below for photos of our farm visit.
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Post authored by Greta Shwachman, FoodCorps Service Member '15-16. 
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