Educate. Access. Thrive.
What is the E.A.T. Initiative?
Sustained nourishment is a key element to experiencing transformative outdoor experiences. Elevate Youth’s E.A.T. Initiative integrates health and wellness into our curriculum as an essential component to creating a long-term impact in a child’s life. Our E.A.T. Initiative is directly informed by the expertise of professional chefs, nutritionists, and community health facilitators.
Our Vision
As part of our wholesome approach to mentorship, we realize the importance of integrating healthy eating options and education into our curriculum as an essential component to creating a long-term impact in a child’s life. In our efforts to do so, we hope to combine our expertise in outdoor education and mentoring with other food security organizations, as well as resources and knowledge surrounding healthy eating and urban farming.
We commit to creating curriculum and building new partnerships that will work off our existing program framework to provide youth a truly transformative experience. We do this through:
Providing a Katsiroubas Cares Box, full of local produce, to 100 families in our network, free of charge.
Including healthy food options at our outings, educating children about the foods they are eating, and teaching how to read nutrition labels.
Running field trips to local farms to learn about how our food is grown and harvested in our own community.
Providing youth with information and incentives for visiting local farmers markets and CSAs.
Facilitating monthly virtual cooking classes in the winter for youth and their families which are fun, engaging, and informative.
Our Approach
Want to support the E.A.T. initiative?
Our E.A.T. Initiative Team
This is a truly collaborative effort. Check out the all star team who directs this initiative!
Elevate E.A.T. Committee:
Melissa Castro
Dulce DePina
Meredith Smith
Paloma Suarez
Karen Masterson
Jessica Torres
Gay Crowley
Sedric White
Tuck Welch