Matches Learn About Health and Kitchen Safety

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Friends for Youth visited the Collective Roots garden at the East Palo Alto Charter School. Collective Roots is a nonprofit organization founded and based in East Palo Alto, CA that seeks to promote food justice by engaging youth and communities in garden-based learning and nutrition. 

Molly, our instructor, taught us the basics about nutrition and explained WHY we need to eat those fruits and vegetables. We talked about how different colored foods help different parts of our body. 

 Senior Friend, Amit, was kind enough to volunteer his body for tracing so that we could fill in the parts of the body that are impacted by which foods.

After we collected a few ingredients from the garden, we tasted the rainbow!

Molly showed us how to handle knives safely and we went to work chopping, juicing and mixing up a beautiful Bulgur Salad. Much to our surprise, this salad was as delicious as it was colorful! All the grown-ups were ready to tough it out and eat healthy that night, but everyone was actually very impressed with their skills and how yummy such fresh health foods can taste!

 Enjoying the fruits of our labor.

Thank you Collective Roots for hosting this amazing event! We learned so much about nutrition, safety, and we all expanded our palates that night.

More cute pics from yesterday…

Meet the Mentoring Institute's New Summer Intern

Hello! My name is Megan Bridge, and I am the new Communications and Social Media intern for the Mentoring Institute this summer. I am currently in my senior year at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I study English with a minor in Education, Learning, and Society. I grew up in Sunnyvale, and am excited to be back in California and actually feel the sunshine for an extended period of time.

 I just got back from a year abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland, where I had a great time meeting new people and also learned a lot about the culture. I went to a rugby game, saw a lot of kilts, and tried vegetarian haggis that was surprisingly good and I would definitely recommend. I also got to drink coffee in various cafes where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novel, which was a big deal to a massive Harry Potter fan like myself.

In my spare time, I am an avid reader. I spend a good amount of time at the library, and currently am making my way through A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. I am also a big fan of the TV show Jeopardy, and tend to do well in trivia categories relating to Shakespeare and pop culture.  In addition, in my spare time I enjoy baking a variety of sweets. I make a pretty delicious chocolate chip cookie, and this summer I have been attempting to find the perfect lemon bar recipe.

I am incredibly excited to be working at Friends for Youth this summer, as I believe the work they do is extremely important and I am glad to be a part of it!

Spotlight Friendships: John + Chris and Adam + Jose

John and Adam were each matched with their own Junior Friends in April 2012 and both can agree that it has been an adventure!  

John was matched with Chris. They attended two San Francisco Giants games per Friends for Youth’s free ticket giveaways. John attended some of Chris’ basketball games and got to see Chris show off his basketball skills. When they aren’t at a sporting event, they like to play legos while watching movies at John’s house. These guys plan to be Friends for a long long time! 

Adam was matched with Jose. Adam and Jose did many creative and inventive activities together. They attended different events from car shows to the Maker Faire. Adam and Jose also enjoyed watching historical movies, which sparked interesting conversations. Adam and Jose continue to meet and have insightful conversations.