Twice a month, staff members from the Ossining School District volunteer to help Feeding Westchester distribute fresh produce, meat, and canned goods at Park School.
They recently welcomed 1989 Ossining High School graduate Jen Cook and her Foodie Bus to the Mobile Food Pantry Distribution. The chef and entrepreneur retrofitted a 2002 BlueBird school bus to include a kitchen and dining area that looks like a barn. The Foodie Bus is available for hire for a private farm-to-table dining experience. Cook also uses the bus to educate on cooking and eating healthy food through a nonprofit she named the H.E.L.P. Bus: Healing, Educating, Liberating People.
On September 25, Cook and volunteer Gail DiLisio of North Salem used food that Feeding Westchester was handing out at the Mobile Pantry to prepare something families could make at home: cucumbers, yellow peppers, tomatoes and onions placed on a bed of iceberg lettuce and drizzled with olive oil.
“I’m just here to offer a different way of cutting a vegetable, maybe that they’re not familiar with, or a different pairing of ingredients that they wouldn’t normally think would be something that they would do,” said Cook.
Ossining Superintendent Raymond Sanchez praised Feeding Westchester as an excellent partner in helping meet the needs of the Ossining community and welcomed the Foodie Bus.
“It’s a great opportunity to show how some of the things that are being distributed to our families can be used to create healthy meals and healthy options for our families,” he said.
