PA Eats has a new mission, and we invite you to join the PA Eats community in our effort to help eliminate and prevent food insecurity in Pennsylvania! In the past few years, while striving to make a lasting impact in our local communities by sharing food-related stories and information about the products, produce, people and places in PA, we learned how tirelessly food banks work to supply food to those who need it. We also discovered that not everyone knows how to turn those ingredients into healthy meals. These revelations propelled us to alter PA Eats’ mission, a transition to a non-profit organization, and all profits will be donated to appropriate organizations and parties throughout Pennsylvania to help address the ongoing issues of hunger and food insecurity in our state.
An important component of our new mission will be a brand-new video series that will be featured on PA Eats, Nourish PA. We’ve created Nourish PA as a vehicle to help bridge the gap between nutritional resources and education. Through this video series, we want to help facilitate the process of making healthy meals from the ingredients and food supplied through food banks throughout Pennsylvania.
For instance: Healthy though they are, vegetables, grains and legumes aren’t worth much if people don’t know how to turn them into healthy meals to feed themselves and their families. That’s where Nourish PA fits in. Our goal is to create a large database of recipes and tutorial videos that can inform and educate people of any age and skill-level, and to empower them to make their own meals.
Nourish PA Volunteer Chef Ian Newman
But we need the help of local chefs to make Nourish PA a success: We are looking for volunteers to come to PA Eats’ kitchen studio located in Lancaster County to develop recipes on their own, or to collaborate with us on developing healthy recipes using ingredients provided by food banks across the state (we will provide a list of these ingredients to volunteers). These Nourish PA videos will be produced and will live online on PA Eats, but they will also be available at food banks across the state. We also plan to partner with libraries throughout Pennsylvania to help distribute the Nourish PA video recipes.
Are you a chef or food professional ready to volunteer with us? We’re looking for dynamic, delicious recipe concepts that meet the following criteria:
- Cost less than $2 per person to make.
- Are easy to make with basic cookware and tools.
- Use standard ingredients and items found at most food banks and in your average kitchen cupboard.
At PA Eats, we believe that the agricultural abundance in Pennsylvania should be accessible to everyone. We also believe that the local farmers doing the crucial work of growing food should be encouraged and supported. Going forward, we are committed to earmarking any financial donations to our partner organization, Feeding PA, to go toward food bank provisions that are grown and/or made in Pennsylvania. This earmarking will automatically benefit PA farmers, and it will complete the circle and help to create a more sustainable model of education, resources and practical application, therefore benefiting everyone.
If you are a chef or culinary pro who wants to lend your talent to Nourish PA by volunteering to be included in the video series, please fill out an interest form here.
If you’re a budding home cook who is excited to use these recipes and videos, stay tuned!
For more information about the Nourish PA video series or PA Eats and our new mission as a nonprofit organization, please contact us here.
- Photos: Dish Works
