Add Passion and Stir

Latest Episodes:

Mavis-Jay Sanders on Not Having Time for Naysayers Oct 19, 2022

Show notes

Mavis-Jay Sanders, chef and activist, discusses what motivates her to use her culinary career to fight food injustice in Black and low-income communities. “When Eric Garner got murdered and there were protests in the streets, I was working in a fine dining restaurant… I couldn't straddle that fence anymore; I couldn't be in a place where these issues didn't matter.” She decided to take her skills to more accessible restaurants and nonprofit organizations. “I do love a little razzle dazzle, but I also wanna make sure that the people who are eating [my food] feel cared for. I wanna make sure that every single person that I come in contact with has the ability to eat.”

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Sharing Strength to End Childhood Hunger Oct 05, 2022

Show notes

Ending childhood hunger in America takes more than a change in policy, it requires individuals and organizations in communities across the country working together and sharing their strength. In this final episode of Add Passion and Stir’s series exploring why food is the most important school supply, we hear from individuals committed to ending hunger in their community. From Chef Lorena Garcia and her nonprofit Big Chef, Little Chef that works in schools to help kids and families build better relationships with food to participants in No Kid Hungry’s Youth Ambassador, join us to hear inspiring stories from those working to end childhood hunger and learn how you can get involved.

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Food is the Most Important School Supply Sep 21, 2022

Show notes

Hunger is a reality, but it is also a solvable problem. While millions of kids face hunger everyday, we can make sure every kid gets the food they need to grow up healthy, happy, and strong. The second episode in Add Passion and Stir’s series on why food is the most important school supply connects with changemakers from federal, state, and local government and community organizations that are working to solve childhood hunger in America. Their solution: making sure kids get feed while they are at school. The episode features:

Dawn Amano-Ige, First Lady of Hawaii
Dr. Sara Bleich, Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity, USDA
Dr. Miguel A. Cardona, Secretary of Education
John Giles, Mayor, Mesa, Arizona
Jennie Gordon, First Lady of Wyoming
Levar Stoney, Mayor, Richmond, Virginia
Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture

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The 12 Million Faces of Childhood Hunger Sep 07, 2022

Show notes

Across America, kids are headed back to school, but nearly 12 million kids in America face hunger. Children need three meals a day to grow up happy, healthy, and strong but for many hunger is a daily reality. In this first episode of a three-part series exploring why food is the most important school supply, you’ll hear directly from those affected by hunger and those witnessing hunger in the classroom. You’ll also begin to understand the opportunity we have to SOLVE the problem of childhood hunger.

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High Tech & High Touch Deliver the Child Tax Credit Aug 17, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, we are revisiting our Child Tax Credit series. We look at how organizations are using technology to make sure eligible families are receiving the credit. With more than 36 million additional children — a majority of whom are Black and Latino — now eligible and the credit being distributed as a monthly payment instead of an annual lump sum many changes were required to ensure success of the program.

We spoke with Amanda Renteria, CEO of Code for America, who launched the GetCTC.org portal to make it easier for families to claim their credit and Jimmy Chen, CEO of Propel, the organization behind the Providers app, which allows participants to manage a variety of government benefits, including the CTC, in one place about how they are helping to the credit reach all eligible families.

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Revolution Foods’ Kirsten Saenz Tobey on Foods Kids Like Aug 03, 2022

Show notes

Kirsten Saenz Tobey, Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer of Revolution Foods, describes how the B Corp she co-founded is helping kids now and in the future. “Our focus has always been to build lifelong healthy eaters, and to do that through primarily school and institutional food systems and access to high quality, healthy food,” she says.

One of Revolution Foods’ keys to this strategy is getting kids food they like. “Every time we design a new dish or a new meal, our chefs go out into school cafeterias to test it with kids and get feedback on which they liked and which they didn't like as much.”

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First Lady of Hawaii on Nourishing Hawaii’s Children Jul 20, 2022

Show notes

The First Lady of Hawaii, Dawn Amano-Ige, is fighting childhood hunger in Hawaii with a simple tool: breakfast. In partnership with No Kid Hungry, Ige launched the Jumpstart Breakfast program in 2019 to ensure that children across Hawaii had access to a nutritious breakfast regardless of their ability to pay.

As Ige notes, “As a teacher and educator, I know that if a child is hungry in the classroom it makes learning so much more difficult.” But breakfast is just one part of a broader initiative to end food insecurity for children in Hawaii – an effort that has been embraced across the state: “Hawaii is a small community, so when the community finds out that there’s a need, they all do their part in helping resolve the problem.”

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How PepsiCo and Campbell Soup Center Communities in Their Business Jul 06, 2022

Show notes

Businesses can have significant impact on the health of communities. C.D. Glin, Vice President of the PepsiCo Foundation, and Kim Fortunato, the first woman to serve as president of the Campbell Soup Foundation, are leading the way for their organizations. “We're grant makers, but we're also change makers… We think about ourselves as being demand driven, demand responsive, participatory, and we put local ownership at the center of a lot of our investments,” says Glin.

“The opportunity for Campbell as a food manufacturer… is to really lead the change in elevating the recognition that school nutrition is not necessarily equitable across this country,” Fortunato states. And this impact extends to developing solutions to societal problems. “When you look at successful change in our country or beyond, you see an intersection of a diverse group of stakeholders, including [private], public sector and government stakeholders,” advises Fortunato. “All three sectors… coming together for collaborative approaches - that's the only way we're going to really impact the community for the long term,” Glin concludes.

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Pediatrician Kofi Essel on Culinary Medicine Jun 22, 2022

Show notes

Washington, DC pediatrician Kofi Essel is committed to giving families the tools they need to thrive. In his work at Children’s Health Center Anacostia and The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science, Essel practices “culinary medicine,” which merges the art of cooking with the science of medicine.

“Nutrition is recognized as one of the most powerful tools to transform the health of populations,” he says.

Lack of access to nutritious foods can have serious consequences for children and families. “Food insecurity is invisible - you cannot consistently rely on any clinical signs, laboratory changes, or anthropometric changes to be able to determine if a family is experiencing food insecurity. … When you address the food, it increases cognitive bandwidth and it increases [a family’s] ability to focus on other things.”

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No Kid Hungry’s Chefs Cycle Rides Again Jun 08, 2022

Show notes

Since 2015, Chefs Cycle has given chefs an outlet to fight hunger AND push their own physical limits. After a two-year break due to COVID, the Chefs Cycle event returned in 2022 – with an intentionally smaller footprint to keep things safe – with a two-day, 200 mile ride in the Santa Rosa region of California. With more than 90 riders, a mix of new and returning, the event exceeded its goal of $500k raising more than $800k for the No Kid Hungry campaign. Add Passion and Stir talks with some of this year's riders -- Thomas Pisha-Duffly of Gado Gado in Portland, OR; Baruch Laskin of The Laskin in Calgary; Jamie Carawan of Buffalo Wild Wings; Elaine Cizma who rode with her dad Ted Cizma of Stellar Pizza; and Damien Hanft of Inspire Brands -- about why they ride.

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