This has been quite an exciting year for California Food Literacy Center! This Thanksgiving, we’re counting our blessings, and they all point back to YOU.

From the spark of an idea, our organization has accomplished an incredible number of endeavors this year: created a 13-week food literacy curriculum, teaching it to 100 low-income kids every week, developing and sharing a healthy recipe each week on our website, passing a resolution declaring every September Food Literacy Month in the state of California, and joining the Food System Collaborative & Sacramento Hunger Coalition to work on collaborative solutions to our region’s food problems.

We cannot do all this without the dedication and support of a number of INCREDIBLE food literacy champions in the community who believed in our vision from the very beginning. We are thankful for all of you this Thanksgiving and every single day of the year for helping California Food Literacy Center reach more and more kids and families with food literacy education.

We send you a million veggie cartwheels and broccoli smiles for everything you have done for us!

Our brilliant board who believed in a start-up nonprofit and provided invaluable support and advice: Jay Cohen of Boost Strategies; Elise Bauer of SimplyRecipes.com; Peg Tomlinson-Poswall, food activist; Carmen Raggio, Cristo Rey High School; Jillena Hernandez, California Speaker of the Assembly’s Office.

Our talented program committee who helped us develop our Your Sandwich Can Save the World curriculum: Carmen Raggio, Cristo Rey High School; Emilie Allen Beecroft, Aspire Capitol Heights Academy; and Korena Thomen, Kaiser Permanente.

Our dedicated volunteers who have spent countless hours as the backbone and worker bees of the agency, teaching kids at school and the public through outreach activities, writing copy, developing recipes, designing graphics, and always being willing to pitch in and help: Pat Soberanis, Susan Vitulli, Taylor Jaspar, Sarah Langford, and Heather Teoh.

Our sponsors who have provided us vital services to develop as an organization: Kristin Thebaud, Kristin Thebaud Communications; Activate Direct; Fibers.com; and Elliott’s Natural Foods.

Our generous founding donors funding our important food literacy work with kids and families: Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes, Peg & John Poswall, Jay Cohen, Jillena & Marcos Hernandez, James & Donna Provenza, our sponsors, and the many donors who have helped us launch this critical work. You can become one of them through our online fundraising campaign.

The AWESOME kids at Capitol Heights Academy who are our Food Literacy Superheroes and our inspiration! The teachers at Capitol Heights Academy who help our volunteers manage the enthusiastic kids and who are also enthusiastic learners themselves.

Our program partners who collaborate with us on important issues: Assemblymember Roger Dickinson who worked with us to pass our Food Literacy Month resolution, Soil Born Farms who donates gleaned food for the kids, Food System Collaborative who are working together to fix our food system, Sacramento Hunger Coalition who are raising awareness and finding solutions to the problem of hunger in our region, Aspire Capitol Heights Academy who gave us an opportunity to work with their kids, Midtown Business Association who is our partner in building a Midtown Farmers Market, Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau and many local chefs who we are partnering with to celebrate our region’s beautiful produce through America’s Farm to Fork Capital project, Slow Food Sacramento who has made us the beneficiary of its Food Film Festival to further educate the public on food literacy, and Feeding Crane Farms who donates beautiful farm produce and will be partnering with us on a kids summer camp. There are many others! We are grateful to these collaborations, which bring food literacy deeper into our community.

Incredible food bloggers who share their delicious and nutritious recipes with us: Elise Bauer of SimplyRecipes.com, Chef Tina Jo, Jillena Hernandez of Eat Well, Live Free, those who shared their Food Literacy Sandwich recipes during Food Literacy Month, and those who contributed to our Jolly Food Literacy Holiday Recipe Collection (an e-book that we’re giving to everyone who donates $50 or more this holiday season)!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Thank you for your generosity and support in helping California Food Literacy Center bring food literacy to our region!

With broccoli smiles,

Amber Stott, Founder & Heather Teoh, Writer & Wonton Web Master