HOOK

HOOK 35 Doritos and say look, let's read the back of it and half of the kids don't even know the manufacturer must list the ingredients. They see all this non-food processing added to maybe one or two food- sounding ingredients, addi3ves like "maltodextrin" and "ar3ficial flavors". We interact with kids edu- ca3ng them that they have a choice between real food and processed food and how it relates to health. Secondly, for more examples of real food, we take them to one of our restaurants in our local hotels for lunch. We also own a piece of property that we lease for 1 dollar a year to a farmer and we buy product from paying retail. The farmer grows amazing stuff and helps again, fuels that kind of economy. Very core is the balance that you are sensa3ve to how you do business and whom you hire and where you are pu5ng your money is key. We take the kids to the farm where they will help har- vest, digging up potatoes under- neath the earth. We wrapped all these thing together with another classroom session. We are in every school and get to every seventh grader in our county. "A First Bite" feeds most of the people that are most in need tonight in Sullivan County. Through the county we delivered 185,000 meals, scratch cooked in the kitchen. A key part of the program is farm to school. We took over what was the Catskills Food Hub, and ag- gregate from farmers and are now packing it in a way the cafeterias need it and each is a li4le different. We then get it to the cafeteria so that we are now replacing food that is being shipped. A lot of farms differ in sizes and to different degrees in Sullivan. These are people who have been with us since the beginning, with a focus on making a difference in this beau3ful rural area. www.asinglebite.org They are addressing and infusing a true meaning for a healhly community, as one in every five kids is food insecure in Sullivan County. Sims and Kirsten also oper- ate five bou3que hotels (Hemlock Neversink is one) and four restaurants in New York's Sullivan Catskills, and are embarking on upgrading and preserving three historic buildings in Newburgh into an iconic hotel property. How does the program work? I was born and raised here and am fi#h genera- 3on family, so I care deeply about the area. It is called "A Single Bite" because the first 3me I went into the classroom, and started to talk with kids we brought in a chef who makes single bites of food, and the one rule is that you have to take a single bite... we give them smoked trout to bite on. Then we talk about food, how it was prepared and importantly what is in it. Then I throw them a bag of "a Single Bite" is a non-pro# program formed eight years ago to educate kids on what real food is, and where it comes from. HOOK talks with one of the Co-Founders Sims Fos- ter, partner of Co-Founder Kirsten Harlow Foster.

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