Executive Director Paul Dahm guest blogs on bclc.chamberpost.com

Business Support Advances Nutrition, Health, and Leadership
By Paul Dahm, Executive Director, Brainfood
Source: http://bclc.chamberpost.com/category/health

Give a student a veggie omelet, and he eats for a meal. Teach a student how to choose healthy ingredients, follow a recipe, and work creatively with peers, and he eats for a lifetime.

To positively impact the lives of local youth, community and national businesses are investing in Brainfood, an after-school and summer cooking program.

Brainfood is a youth-development organization that uses food and cooking as tools to teach life skills and healthy living to teenagers in Washington, D.C. It believes the innovation and support necessary to identify solutions to the challenges facing today’s youth requires collaboration with the private sector.

Accordingly, through the upcoming 4th Annual Brainfood Grill-Off, once again companies are donning aprons and firing up the grills in support of D.C. youth. To tackle the obesity epidemic and empower youth to be informed decision makers, businesses see value in advancing the health and wellness of the next generation.

As Brainfood’s signature event, the Brainfood Grill-Off is supported entirely by corporate community leaders, including: Kraft Foods, Mercator XXI, LTU Technologies, BB&T, Merritt Group, law firms Paul Hastings and Greenberg Traurig, and the Grill-Off’s signature sponsor, Reznick Group.

In addition, with the support of D.C. restaurants, chefs, and caterers, including Zola, 1789, Dino, Granville Moore’s, and Ridgewells, Brainfood creates a fun and educational atmosphere for students, business leaders, and chefs to work together promoting nutrition, health, and wellness.

Brainfood programs successfully engage people across the community. The common denominator bringing individuals and businesses together is the recognition that creating the healthy-living platform necessary for successful adulthood must start early. While much of what Brainfood teaches might be considered in the realm of public health and wellness, students learn about teamwork, responsibility, leadership, and critical thinking skills using food as the medium. All of these life skills are vital to being a successful person, friend, family member, employee, and community leader.

One Brainfood grad stated that “…the most rewarding part about Brainfood has been watching my own transformation. You have to live it to really understand. Brainfood equips students with qualities that everyone should have: patience; a willingness to work with others and cooperate; a work ethic; and an open mind – skill[s] that people need to work at corporations and to get along in the real world.” Through her experience and connections made at Brainfood, this graduate went on to receive the Posse Foundation Scholarship to attend Bucknell University. She states, “had it not been for the lessons I learned through Brainfood, I wouldn’t have been able to show the Posse Foundation that I was a dynamic, a team player, and a leader in the community.”

Brainfood’s financial support comes from corporate, foundation, and individual donors who value health, nutrition, and wellness by investing in their communities. Please contact me to engage in our work to promote healthy living, self-reliance, and active learning among D.C. youth – the business community is the key ingredient in this recipe for success!

You can also read the full article at: http://bclc.chamberpost.com/2010/05/business-support-advances-nutrition-health-and-leadership.html#more-3083