Conference of Leaders
Rebecca Finkel
In early June, I had the opportunity to attend Share Our
Strength’s Conference of Leaders in Washington, D.C. with Raquel and Toni. As a
volunteer with Solid Ground’s Cooking Matters for the past three years, who
recently transitioned to a satellite partner, I was excited to join them for
three days of sessions along with dozens of other Cooking Matters partners and
volunteers from around the country who demonstrate a similar commitment to
cooking and nutrition education for limited income populations.
The Cooking Matters program, which is hosted by Solid Ground, a
non-profit organization based in Seattle that focuses on ending poverty and
undoing racism & oppressions that are the root causes of poverty, serves as
the education arm of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign. The entire
first day of the conference was devoted to program evaluation and quality
improvement of Cooking Matters. Sessions allowed the national office to share
strategic messages and materials (including the Cooking Matter App! (http://cookingmatters.org/app) and
highlighted the successes of Cooking Matters partners who were piloting
innovative ways to reach their target audience. Sessions also allowed attendees
to identify challenges, brainstorm solutions and share best practices. In
“Teaching Core Cooking Matters Skills” lead partners’ staff and volunteers
discussed useful tips they use in class, such as asking participants to bring
in food labels from home to help them make label reading relevant to their food
preferences, bringing grocery store circulars to class to help with meal
planning and budgeting lessons, and even buying magnifying glasses from the dollar
store to aid those who need help seeing the ingredient list or to outfit kids
as “food detectives” during grocery tours.
Many experienced Cooking Matters staff emphasized the importance of
assessing and identifying the actions class participants are taking and
building upon them to maximize the nutritional value of meals they already
enjoy.
Grocery tours were a large focus of the conference, with several sessions (and even a mock grocery store display), to promote one-time Cooking Matters in the Store tours (formerly Shopping Matters). Still, at the heart of the Cooking Matters program is the planning, preparation, cooking and sharing of family meals, a fact conveyed best by Melissa D’Arabian of Food Network’s Ten Dollar Dinners in her lively session, “Secrets to Making Healthy and Affordable Family Meals.”
On day two, Sam Kass, Executive Director of Let’s Move! http://www.letsmove.gov and
Senior White House Policy Advisor on Nutrition kicked off the official start of
Conference of Leaders at the brunch plenary.
As the fate of the Farm Bill loomed at the forefront of everyone’s
minds, he spoke about the timeliness of the gathering, and the importance of
addressing both child hunger and childhood obesity as one issue with a singular
focus on enabling kids to grow up to be healthy adults. As a former White House
chef, Kass helped First Lady Michelle Obama create the White House garden,
which Raquel, Toni and I found time to visit in between sessions.
In addition to the Cooking Matters agenda, Conference of
Leaders brought together No Kid Hungry partners, which also include business
partners, donors, and those involved in advocacy work. It created a space for these professionals
from a wide range of fields to discuss ways to collaborate and I realized that
though I may work with Cooking Matters in Seattle I am part of a much larger
network that extends across rural and urban America. By inviting this network
to convene for three days to train and learn, motivate and inspire one another,
Conference of Leaders reinforced the value of sharing our strengths.
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