Community Kitchen

Provide nutritious and appropriate meals to children with disabilities and their families in a local community center. Reduce waste by direct delivery of food. Provide a supportive atmosphere at mealtime and community education to family members, Improve health and quality of life in an underserved community.

Let me introduce you to Alice. She is a seven year old girl with cerebral palsy who is wheelchair dependent. Her family faces challenges eating nutritiously, due to lack of accessibility and time for preparation.

Her parents try to prepare food at home, but the problem is that there is a lack of healthy food in the neighborhood and she may be more susceptible to food allergies. Also it takes longer for her parents to prepare the food for her. Instead of bringing the family together, it takes them apart.

The two key distinctions of our approach are: (1) developing a Community Kitchen centralizes the delivery and cooking of healthy food; and (2) eating together provides social interaction for families and siblings, reducing stress and improving quality of life, and providing education about nutrition to families.

Our solution will help Alice and her family, and will also help the community because she and her family will be healthier, have less stress, reduce secondary conditions, reduce food waste and obesity, and allow families to have more time to pursue other interests.

Our solution will be paid for by local governments because they value improving health and reducing costs do to secondary medical conditions.

Families of children with disabilities in low-income communities are strapped for time, money and social support. In particular, children with disabilities often require special foods and/or preparation techniques, which increase the burden on parents who are already short of time.

By purchasing, preparing and serving meals together, families can save money; reduce food waste; turn meal preparation time into a supportive social activity; and provide social interaction for parents, children with disabilities, and their siblings. In addition we plan to provide education on nutrition and food preparation for families.

Working with the family as a system, reduce stress, improve health of all members, and provide efficiency of food access and preparation for families of children with disabilities. Communal meals provide social interaction and support for the entire family.