Pilot Light

The first Food Education in Action Week was a success! We loved hearing from our teachers and partners across the country about the different ways they celebrated and shared their Food Education work with their community. One 2nd grade classroom, led by Pilot Light Fellow Jennifer Bailey, even gleaned 378 pounds of potatoes in just one hour for their local food pantry. Students loved this activity - one even said "this is better than recess!" You can't get a better 2nd grade endorsement than that! Find the full recap on our Feeding Minds blog: https://lnkd.in/e6rDBnku #pilotlightchefs #teacherspotlight #foodeducation #foodeducationinaction

💐Thank you to the incredible team at Hawksmoor Chicago for supporting our mission by sponsoring the 2024 Feed Your Mind Gala and donating a portion of your proceeds from different menu items throughout the year! We also are excited to welcome Executive Chef Phillip Branch to our festivities this year as a Guest Chef. Thank you so much for welcoming us into your community with open arms this year – we are very grateful to have you in our corner! 🍽️ Hungry for more? Join us at the 2024 Feed Your Mind Gala on Nov. 1! Don’t miss your chance to experience this one-of-a-kind evening in support of Food Education. Get your tickets today while you still can: https://lnkd.in/gv8aJ3Sk #sponsorshoutout #pilotlightchefs #feedyourmind #nonprofitfundraisers #nonprofitpartners #thankyou

Thank you so much to Anupy Singla Gupta of Indian as Apple Pie for her outstanding support of this year's Feed Your Mind Gala! Check out her full segment about our mission, event, and some delicious Samosa Puffs on WGN-TV: https://lnkd.in/gMBBz54K

Looking for lessons that align to this year's #FarmtoSchoolMonth theme "From Soil to Sea: Nourishing People and the Planet"? Check out the new classroom resources aligned with #HopeintheWater, the sustainable waterways docuseries produced by our friends at Fed by Blue! These lessons, available now through PBS LearningMedia, are designed for grades 6-12 and shine a light on how a sustainable food systems future can be achieved through collective effort. Check out these 5 great lessons today at: https://lnkd.in/gR4-CVvN #Farmtoschool #f2smonth #teacherresources #teachingresources #foodsystemseducation #foodeducation #agricultureeducation #sustainableagriculture

💐 We were honored to collaborate with the amazing team behind SIX4 Creative (www.six4creative.com) this year as our exclusive Feed Your Mind Gala media sponsor! Their hard work, dedication, and unwavering positivity made them fantastic partners! Thank you so much for supporting our mission – we couldn’t do it without you! 🍽️ Hungry for more? Join us at the 2024 Feed Your Mind Gala on Nov. 1! Don’t miss your chance to experience this one-of-a-kind evening in support of Food Education. Get your tickets today while you still can: https://lnkd.in/gv8aJ3Sk #feedyourmind #galasponsor #nonprofitpartners #pilotlightchefs #sponsorshoutout

🥹 There is something irreplaceably special about Pilot Light students and teachers sharing the impact our programs have on their lives in their own words. Thank you, Janelle and thank you to her teacher Mr. Albrecht for sharing this quote with us. ➡️ Last year, Janelle's 7th grade class worked together to advocate for a share table in their school cafeteria in an effort to reduce food waste. Their hard work paid off: their school administration and nutrition team agreed to have a student-run share table going forward, simultaneously reducing food waste and battling food insecurity in their school community. 💚 These stories of "small" changes remind us that food advocacy doesn't have to be big in scope to have a lasting impact in our communities. What are small changes you can make to help our food system? ✨ Want to support Food Education & advocacy projects like this one? There's still time to attend our annual Feed Your Mind Gala in Chicago this Nov. 1st, or participate in our silent auction virtually through 11/01/24 at 9:45 PM CT. This annual fundraiser helps fuel our mission all year round - you don't want to miss it! Find tickets, silent auction and more info at: https://lnkd.in/gv8aJ3Sk

💐Sending a big thank you to our Chef de Cuisine Feed Your Mind Gala sponsor Indian As Apple Pie! Founded by Anupy Singla Gupta, their line of cookbooks and goods is THE spot for Authentic Indian recipes, spice blends, sauces, and flavors. We are absolutely thrilled to welcome them to our 2024 Gala celebration! ✨ Anupy's hit cookbook, Indian for Everyone, is now available in paperback just in time for Diwali and the 2024 holiday season. Order your copy today at indianasapplepie.com! 🍽️ Don’t forget — tickets for the 2024 Feed Your Mind Gala are still on sale! Don’t miss your chance to experience this one-of-a-kind evening in support of Food Education. Get your tickets today while you still can: https://lnkd.in/gv8aJ3Sk #galasponsor #nonprofitpartner #thankyou #sponsorthankyou #feedyourmindgala #pilotlightchefs #sponsorshoutout

We are so excited to announce that Antoni Porowski will be hosting this year’s Feed Your Mind Gala in Chicago this November 1st, supporting Pilot Light! Pilot Light is a chef-founded nonprofit that teaches thousands of students across the country about food, cooking, agriculture, nutrition, and the food system – get your tickets today at https://lnkd.in/eFqg63BW See you there?🥂💚 Can’t attend the Gala in Chicago? Please consider making a donation to support Pilot Light’s Food Education mission at www.pilotlightchefs.org! Sponsored by Anupy Singla Gupta of Indian as Apple Pie! Featuring a one-of-a-kind meal by the Feed Your Mind Gala Guest Chefs:  ✨ Phillip Branch of Hawksmoor Chicago ✨ Rodolfo Cuadros of Bloom Plant Based Kitchen and Amaru Restaurant ✨ Joe Frillman and Leigh Omilinsky of Daisies Chicago ✨ Tim Flores and Genie Kwon of Kasama ✨ Dominique Leach of Lexington Betty Foods ✨ James Martin of Bocadillo Market ✨ Oliver Poilevey of Bouchon and RESTAURANTE OBELIX ✨ Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe ✨ José Sosa of The Greggory ✨ Jonathan Zaragoza of Birrieria Zaragoza ✨ Cocktails by Jeremy Barrett of Lemon Chicago Curated by Pilot Light’s Founding Chefs: matthias merges, Jason Hammel, Paul Kahan, and Justin Large #pilotlightchefs #sponsored #nonprofitpartner #foodeducation #nonprofitfundraiser #feedyourmindgala Celebrities Unlimted

Check out this monster of a sweet potato! Pilot Light teacher Amy Stamm sent us this awesome photo of her students in Northampton, MA celebrating Food Education in Action Week with a lesson on comfort foods and how they relate to wellbeing: ❤️"In our cooking class for the past two weeks, we focused on comfort food and learned about how eating comfort food (food that typically has a high fat content, food that ties into our cultural sense of belonging and memory, etc.) releases dopamine and helps our bodies to produce serotonin. We made mac and cheese, Italian wedding soup, and sweet potato pie. 🥧Students got to see one of the biggest sweet potatoes any of us had ever seen and compare it to a typical sweet potato. We used the huge sweet potato to make the pies. Few students had had sweet potato pie, and many were hesitant to try it at first, but once they did, many declared that they liked it way more than they thought they would. We learned about its Southern roots, which is why it's less familiar to them than it may be to students who are growing up in the South." Amy is also an active leader in her local food system: ♻️"In addition to classes, I participated this week on a panel at Reuse24, a Minnesota Reuse conference, where I presented the results of a grant our school received to transition from disposable lunch clamshells, silverware, cups, plates, bowls, and food storage containers to all reusable products, saving thousands and thousands of items from the landfill every year and helping us to reduce our food-related waste significantly. 🌱In addition, I was asked to be a member of the food justice organization (and our food partner) Grow Food Northampton's Education Advisory Board, where we help GFN's education manager strategize about how best to fulfill their mission of connecting our community to the land as a source of food, building food sovereignty, and creating a just food system. We had our first meeting on October 10th, and it was inspiring to connect with other food educators in our community and to really think through how to increase food access and education, and to build food justice together." Keep up the fantastic work, Amy! 👏 Submit your Food Education in Action story any time this month on our website: https://lnkd.in/gWPhBedZ

FRESHFARM FoodPrints is joining Pilot Light in our first ever “Food Education in Action Week!” Pilot Light Food Education Standards are a key way that FoodPrints’ connects academics to food education. Wondering what this looks like in action? Students at Amidon Bowen school learned that plants have families and made observational drawings of plants by the families they belong to. These students drew peppers and eggplants together because they both belong to the nightshade family. In this “Plants and Their Families” lesson, students practice the Next Generation Science Standard of making observations to learn about the diversity of life AND the Pilot Light Food Education Standard of learning about the origins and sources of food. Thank you, FRESHFARM FoodPrints for using the Pilot Light Food Education Standards in your hands-on lessons and for joining our Food Education in Action Week! We believe that Food Education is the key to a sustainable food systems future, and you are helping make that vision a reality! Ready to take action? Get started at: https://lnkd.in/gWPhBedZ You can participate any time! #foodeducation #standardsbasedlearning #foodeducationactionweek #f2smonth