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The Salvation Army is reopening their newly modernized Women and Children's Shelter in Orlando. They have programs like Feed the Table and Seed to Table to fight food insecurity. Partners like Four Roots and Valencia Culinary Arts are helping to educate and provide fresh and healthy food for the clients. They believe that fresh food is important for the clients' well-being and to improve their lifestyle. They also emphasize the importance of cooking and growing food from scratch to avoid additives and chemicals. The collaboration between organizations is seen as a trailblazing effort to better the community. The partnership is helping not only with food but also with educating seniors and teaching culinary skills. The focus is on going back to traditional and healthy foods to maintain cultural roots and traditions. We should be recording. Okay. I'm going to be right next door keeping an eye on it. Got you. We're going to get right into it. Y'all ready? Oh yeah. Okay. Three, two, one. Hi, this is Captain Ken Chapman. I'm the Area Commander of the Salvation Army of Orange and Osceola Counties. And a lot is happening on our 8-acre Orlando campus right now. We anticipate just in a few weeks from this podcast, a few days actually, the grand reopening of our newly modernized Women and Children's Shelter. We have some wonderful programs that are part of this reopening. And we are really excited to talk about it. Feed the Table is one of those programs because food insecurity is not just about the quantity of food one consumes, but also the quality. One of the new programs we have designed is Seed to Table, Healthier Eating for All. And it's designed to supplement our efforts to fight food insecurity on both fronts. First, the program will provide, strive to increase awareness of and access to healthy, fresh ingredients for good, fresh, wholesome food. And so today we have some of our partners here that will help our clients build planter beds and garden areas, and then educate them on how to plant, cultivate, harvest, and preserve fresh fruits and vegetables and herbs when they get on their own. So I have today Carmen Gibson, who is the Community Engagement Manager for Four Roots Meet the Need program, and Chef Alex Erdman, Dean of School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management with Valencia. We are so glad to have you guys here. Thank you for coming. Carmen, I'm going to start with you. Tell us about what is your passion and what brings you to this table. Well, first I want to say grand rising to everybody. My passion is providing fresh produce and nutrient food to the community. One thing that I notice is that in a lot of food deserts and things like that, they have access to food, but it's from a convenience store and it's not healthy, right? So we're just trying to give them an opportunity to be able to provide this for them and give them access to it, and my passion is just engaging with the people, finding out what they need, and providing that for them. And you've been demonstrating that on our campus for quite some time. We have many programs we're working with you, and Chef, we have just really just gutted our Women and Children's Shelter to the walls and kind of rebuilt it and have a beautiful kitchen built in, and we have actually our head chef, Bruce Doris, has been promoted. He was educated by you and your team, and he's going to not only prepare freshly prepared food for our clients, but he's going to teach them how to do that when they get it on their own. So let's hear about what brought you to this table. Oh, for me, this is an amazing initiative. I think it's grassroots. I think that's something that we need in the neighborhood, and it just comes full circle. So, you know, educating the students, educating the students, actually, you know, being part of those great Salvation Army initiatives, being part of, you know, Four Roots, and having to put that all together in a full circle, I think that will help a lot in the neighborhood, help a lot for folks who are really disadvantaged and really improve their lifestyle. Yeah, so both Valencia Culinary Arts and Four Roots Foundation, we work on a lot of different levels, and this is a project that grew out of our collaboration. And the vision is, you know, people, as you said, Carmen, can go down to the convenience store with the EBT card and get a slice of pizza or hot dog, and they call that their meal. And it's so unhealthy, and even in our shelters, because of convenience, we've been taking the top off of stofers and putting it in the oven and heating it up because it's just easier to do mass production. But we don't want to do that any longer with our women and children's shelters. There are 66 beds and five family rooms and a safe room in that shelter. And this chef, Bruce Doris, will be dedicated to fresh food preparation. Carmen, how important do you think that is for our clients? Well, fresh food is very important to the clients. One, I really believe that what we put in represents what we get out. So trash in is trash out. You know, we often talk about the kids and how they're hyper and all the autism. I really feel that having fresh, at first, access to it, right, and then understanding how important the access and how to prepare it, and then empowering them to be able to do it themselves so that they can carry on it. So it's really important to the livelihoods of the parents and then generations to come, because what we're taught as kids is also what we teach our children and our grandchildren. Yeah, absolutely. Well said. And, Chef, we have so many additives in our foods. And a lot of our health problems and Four Roots really focuses a lot on this. And John Rivers has a great vision to change the world through healthy eating. It's hard these days because we have a lot of diseases and sickness and illnesses that come from additives in food, and it's not being closer to the dirt. So as a chef who teaches, and you're big into the education, how do you feel this can make a big change in our community? Oh, we have to basically try a place, we have to promote, but also we have to model. And you have to remember, food is medicine. But also a lot of that stuff that's out there now, it's labeled food, but actually it's not food anymore, it's a chemical. So that's what I'm concerned, and that's what we have to make people aware of, and that's what we have to educate. So that's very important, building foundations for people to understand food, to prepare food correctly themselves, from scratch, versus just opening up some packaging with things in there that you don't even know what chemical that is anymore. Right, right. And I think it's getting worse. Oh, yes. And you see, obesity is a big problem today, because everything's supersized. You go to McDonald's, let's upsize it, along with the additives. And so this collaboration, this collaborative effort, I believe, is going to be, will start hopefully a revolution, that people will get back to the basics. And not only cooking fresh, but also growing. We have raised gardens we're putting in the back of the shelter, and we're going to have the clients participate in that, so they can help grow some of the food that they eat. What do you think about that, Carmen? You know, listening to you, and I'm thinking about the collaboration that's happening, what I see in Orlando is that there's so many nonprofits, and people are needing help, and we don't work together, but yet we say we're here for the community. But to see that Salvation Army, Four Roots, Valencia, and then also Ebony, we're all coming together, and we all own the part that we know, and we're giving that to the women and children. So we would be, you know, helping them with the designing of the garden bed, educational component, teaching them how to grow their food, empowering them to say, oh, look, this carrot came out the ground, it's not something that I see at a grocery store, right? And then what you're going to have is also an education piece of how to shop more, you know, for food that is nutrition. And then you have Chef here that's going to go ahead and teach them how to prepare it. Now, that is for nonprofits working together for the betterment of the community. As you said, I think we're trailblazing and showing that organizations can work together for the betterment of the community. Your organization has, and Chef, yours, has a lot of strengths, and mine does, too, but we also have a lot of weaknesses. So when we are collaborating and partnering together, we're actually lifting each other up. And I would think if I was a funder or a donor, I would think, hallelujah, my money is being used in a more effective way, in a more efficient way. Your organization also helps us in educating our seniors who are falling into a lot of bad food issues, and that is proving to be a very successful thing. And you're working with us in Osceola. And Chef, Valencia is really a trailblazer, I think, in this community and beyond. That accelerated studies program you have with certification and your culinary arts is making a huge difference. In a tourism town, restaurants and food is very important, and you're helping to teach people to do this the right way. Bruce Doris came through your program, and he is so excited about what you do, because you not only taught about how to properly prepare food and all that, and by the way, this guy prepares 20,000 meals for us in Thanksgiving week, pretty amazing, most efficient thing I've ever seen, but you're teaching more than just about food. It's about character. It's about living wholesomely. Give me some background about where you come from your teaching standpoint with that. Well, it goes back to your roots. It's back to your culture. It's back to how you grow up, and so that's something we have to reflect on. So what did my parents cook? What did my grandparents cook? And I think that's the thing that a community has to reflect on. And think about how they used to live. Think about what you used to eat. You know, what was the food that we had on our tables when we were kids, or what my grandma served. So those kind of recipes, those kind of ingredients, we need to go back into and look at more traditional foods, more healthy foods, and I think that needs to be reflected. A lot of folks have to be careful. Don't lose your culture, you know, because that really goes into your food. And a lot of foods that we used to eat, used to cook, they're actually healthy, and they're in season, they're natural, you know. That's how you build up your food background, and this is how you continue tradition. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense about culture. The bad thing about that is I'm from the south, from Georgia, and sopping up gravy with biscuits is what we're raised on doing. Unless you go to, before you go to bed, you have a, right, but unless you go to bed, and right before you go to bed, you have a bowl of Blue Bell. My son and his wife are vegan, and when they come to our home, it's difficult, or when we travel with them, we have to be aware of that, but I'm learning a lot from that, and the most important thing I've learned is I'm looking when I buy something at the store now, what is in this? It's amazing some of this stuff they're putting down our throats, and we are buying into it. So part of that education with Seed to Table will be let's read these ingredients and get this right. Well, you guys, thank you so much for what you're doing with us on so many levels. I consider you to be community heroes, and I'm honored to be able to partner with you and to work with you. You're great people. You're making a difference in the community, and we're very grateful for what you're going to be doing in the future. Seed to Table is going to be a great success for Roots and Valencia College. Thank you. Thank you. So Salvation Army, if you want to help us, and if you want to be a partner with us, you can go to SalvationArmyOrlando.org or SalvationArmyOsceola.org, or you can text the word good to 24365. And the way I remember that is 24 hours, 365 days, except this year it's 366. So text the word good to 24365 SalvationArmyOrlando.org, SalvationArmyOsceola.org. Thank you so much for listening. God bless each one of the people that were sitting by me today. They are going to make a difference in this community, as you can too. God bless you. Thank you so much. Thank you. No, you ought to have higher aspirations, I'm telling you. Hold on, let me pass my, no. Thank you all very much. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Herb Paxson, you're bringing up with me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hi. Come on in. All right. It's just a conversation. It's just a conversation. I love it. And the thing is, we'll be talking about our passion. Yes. And that's easy. That's easy, right? You have a passion. I have a passion. And somewhere, it bumps together. It does. So I'm going to start with you, and then you guys start setting up. OK? OK. OK. Heather, you flip. You flip. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Your timing all right? I'm good. Yeah. I live in Ocoee, so I came here, and then I go to Zebra. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how is the LGBTQ, is that the right way to say it now? Yes. Because it changes a lot. LGBTQ. We say, at Zebra, LGBTQ+. OK. Because it's more inclusive for everybody. So. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. How.