April 2023 – Several times a month, the Charlie Cart at Helena Food Share appears in the Pantry, serving up nutritious food samples made from food available on the Pantry shelves for customers. Local chefs demonstrate how to cook the food, often highlighting and sharing recipes featuring Montana Harvest of the Month ingredients.
The Charlie Cart is a mobile kitchen; equipped with a cooktop, appliances, utensils, bowls, and pans found in a well-stocked kitchen. Just about any meal can be prepared on the cart. Funded through a grant from the City of Helena, the Charlie Cart also travels to elementary schools throughout the school year, serving up lessons and cooking experiences for K-5 students in Helena. Helena Food Share staff transports the cart to schools where Kim Lloyd, the Montana Harvest of the Month Community Coordinator at St. Peter’s Health, delivers age-appropriate lessons to each class.
In March, Kim and the Charlie Cart visited Warren School. Kim taught the younger students about the Brussels sprout—where they come from, how they grow, why they are nutritious, and how to make Brussels Sprouts Chips. The chips were a big hit with the students, and one mom later shared that her daughter came home saying she loved Brussels sprouts and asked her mom to fix them. The older students were divided into teams and given a recipe to make granola. Each team had to follow the recipe, assign tasks, and measure ingredients. Several students asked for the recipe so they could make it at home for their families.
Learning about and tasting food that is good for you is the primary goal of the Charlie Cart in schools. Kim also incorporates food basics in her lessons, covering the USDA food groups, how the food is grown, how to prepare food safely, and how to measure ingredients. Kim shared, “Preparing meals involves math, science, reading, and art—incorporating all these subjects into one activity for the kids.”
Warren Elementary School Principal Tia Wilkins said, “The Charlie Cart visit made for an exciting day. Students got a hands-on experience; smells floated throughout the school, and students exclaimed as they walked by the cart, ‘I got to do that today!’” She added, “Nutrition is an abstract concept, and getting to learn about, prepare, and taste healthy food, makes it concrete, something they can begin to relate to.”
Fourth-grade teacher Juliann Solomon asked her students to share with us what the experience meant to them. This student summed it up perfectly, “It was a great experience, and we learned how to work together. It was awesome because we got to learn how to cook.”