Humanim social enterprise School of Food has been selected as a State Farm Finalist and needs your votes!

Humanim social enterprise School of Food has been selected as a State Farm Neighborhood Assist® Top 200 Finalist and needs your votes!

Baltimore, MD (August 10, 2018) School of Food, a Humanim social enterprise, needs your help by voting for them to receive a $25,000 grant from State Farm® to help improve their community. Starting August 15 at 12:01am ET, U.S. residents who are 18 and older with a valid email address can vote for their favorite cause at www.neighborhoodassist.com/entry/2011128

School of Food has until Aug. 24 at 11:59pm ET to rally votes and anyone voting is allowed up to 10 votes per day. On September 25, the top 40 vote-receiving causes will be announced at www.neighborhoodassist.com and a $25,000 grant will be awarded to each of the affiliated nonprofits.

Located in the heart of East Baltimore, a food desert where residents lack access to healthy food and the median household income is $29,829 – School of Food’s Community Kitchen is building a community that can support a robust food economy, and where residents can provide healthy, nourishing food for their families while understanding the impact of food within their own neighborhoods. School of Food’s Community Kitchen aims to promote cooking behaviors (confidence related to cooking skills, perceived barriers related to cooking at home), food resource management (ability to purchase food on a budget and still make healthy food purchases), change in dietary choices and consumption patterns.

“At School of Food, we believe that food is a vehicle for bringing people together, building community, and self-empowerment through knowledge, skills and healthy eating practices. East Baltimore, like many communities, is lacking in important food resources that many of us take for granted – and this grant will allow us to have a great impact on the families and individuals that reside in this community,” said Deborah Haust, VP of Culinary Social Enterprises at Humanim.

The State Farm Neighborhood Assist grant will allow School of Food to provide basic cooking classes to community members who lack access to healthy food and educational resources. Community residents will learn basic to intermediate cooking techniques, and while doing so, cook healthy food in class, eat a family style meal together and take leftovers home. Most importantly the participants will have the knowledge to be able to replicate these essential cooking skills in their home.

State Farm Neighborhood Assist is a crowd-sourced philanthropic initiative that empowers communities to identify issues in their neighborhoods The State Farm Review Committee selected the top 200 finalists from 2,000 submissions.

Media Contact:

Deborah Haust, VP Culinary Social Enterprises at Humanim

dhaust@humanim.org

School of Food’s provides educational programming through cooking classes, demos, and other community events. We foster a food learning environment that empowers people with the skills, knowledge, and experience to make their mark in the kitchen – and on the world. School of Food is proud to be a Humanim Social Enterprise. We are passionate about empowering our community through food education, while growing Baltimore’s local food economy through job training and creation.