Jupiter Middle School Culinary Students Rescues 300 Pounds of Food!

Jupiter Middle School’s Hospitality and Tourism Program, Palm Beach Harvest and El Sol held a local food rescue and distribution event on Saturday, April 20th. Thanks to Palm Beach Harvest over 300 pounds of food was rescued from Whole Foods for this event.

Sixth grade students from Jupiter Middle School’s Hospitality and Tourism Program, with the help of their parents and their instructor Chef Gregory Launel unloaded, cleaned, organized and distributed the rescued food to over 40 community members. Additionally, students created a poster to educate the community about food waste and what we can do to make an impact. Following the lead of the students, Healthier Jupiter staff and volunteers were on site to help organize and distribute the food.

This very successful food distribution event was brought about by the 6th graders who recognized that there is a big problem with food waste and food insecurity in our community. To help be a part of the change, they decided to partner with Palm Beach Harvest to rescue food and distribute the food to our local community. With the amazing support of their teacher Chef Gregory Launel, they planned, organized and implemented this great event!

Students reflected on their experience, and here is what they had to say:

“Before the event at El Sol, me and two other students put together a presentation for the people to see and learn about food waste. We put things such as “what foods we can save” and “food insecurity” as [our] main points in our presentation. There were pictures and facts about food waste. The rest of the class made surveys that the people could fill out, [and translated it] into English and Spanish. All in all the presentation and the surveys turned out great.

So, I got to El Sol around 10:30 AM and I started organizing food.

I organized cheeses, yogurts, lemons, apples, salads and a bunch of other things.

After about an hour later, we started putting the food on tables and set up our presentation. When the event started I got to my station (which has the presentation board). The people I met were so nice and kind to me. But, in total 17 surveys were filled out and our class served over 40 people and gave away over 300 pounds of food!!”

&

“My experience at El Sol was great, many people showed up and a lot of food was taken, and I had a wonderful time, we had many amazing volunteers and workers at El Sol that helped us with almost everything. There was a small communication issue between some people that did not speak much English, but there were some other guests that did help translate. But overall, I think it was a very successful day”

Also, did you know that for about 2 years Healthier Jupiter picked up produce from the Palm Beach County Food Bank to deliver to Chef Greg’s Middle School Culinary Students?! It was two great years of rescuing produce to be used in students’ learning!