This month we continued our programming with Mary Hogan and Addison County Teens. Our volunteers worked with students at the teen center remotely in a fun cooking competition, but this programming has been paused due to the teen center’s closure with the rise of Covid-19 cases in Vermont. We have been lucky to be able to continue working with Mary Hogan School, though, thanks to Principal Jen and all the other kind and flexible administrators and staff! This month we prepared kits in accordance with the November Harvest of the Month, which was Sweet Potatoes. We made stuffed sweet potatoes during a fun Zoom cooking session with families. Signups for our monthly cooking sessions have been growing, and we hope to see even more families to cook squash in December! Families who received kits but couldn’t make it to the Zoom can follow along with the recording sent out to families. See a screenshot of some of the participants proudly holding up their masterpieces below! We are grateful to all of the parents and guardians who made this possible by cooking with their kids at home, and to all who sent in the feedback that we received, as well! We are so happy to hear that kids are trying new foods and loving it.

First things first- an enormous shoutout to all of our volunteers and board members, both in-person and remotely, who made our new and exciting programming possible this month! We had a very busy month of October programming with Mary Hogan School and the Teen Center.

The Vermont Harvest of the Month was Kale for October, so we cooked two different kale dishes with Mary Hogan families over Zoom. We made meal kits and delivered them to the school, and then made the kale chips and pasta dish synchronously over Zoom with parents and kids! It was so much fun and we’re already excited to cook again in November. We’ve attached some photos of meal kit prep here, and Mary Hogan families can watch the recorded cooking video that was sent out to families and follow along with the pasta and kale chip recipes.

Our programming with the Addison County Teen Center is also underway- our volunteers are working remotely to mentor groups of teens in a “Chopped”- style competition. So much fun!

If you want to be involved with cooking or volunteering next month, let us know at nom@middlebury.edu! See you soon!

We have had a very new and different start to the fall, and we’re excited to get NOM up and running this year! Our club has been very active on Zoom this fall, participating in the MiddView Community Engagement Panel, MiddAction Fair, and the Student Activities Fair.

We have several programs in the works with community partners at Mary Hogan and the Teen Center and are excited to begin with these as soon as everyone is settled into the new school year.

We are asking all members, both new and returning, to fill out this form (also found at go/nom2020) to let us know what they’re interested in doing with the club this fall! Feel free to fill it out and join us even if you have never volunteered with us or didn’t find us at the club fair!

We are really excited for a new semester and hope to see you all (distanced in person and virtually) soon!