The UCLA Family Commons is a social services-type organization dedicated to inspiring healthy families and healthy living. More than a typical such service organization, it serves the full income range, and if anything is skewed towards higher income families. As an extension of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, they are and very much act like a pilot program, with funding out of proportion to its peers and some flailing about trying different ways of reaching their target population, which is unrealistically broad.
That said, they seem to be doing great stuff for the few people they serve. As I savored the freshness and the samples of the Wednesday Farmer's Market (like all farmers markets, a haven for great picture taking) I saw a group of six or so 9 year olds with a counselor going through the market each with a shopping list in hand and little slips of paper with a sentence or two of the culinary qualities and health benefits of different foods, like potatoes and lemons and beans. Each had a basket and were chatting about the strawberries and other tasties they wanted to buy if they had money left over.
All of this is well and good except the Santa Monica Farmers Markets already run a schools outreach program with field trips, visits to schools, and library events around cooking and healthy eating. Family Commons' program adding an explicit healthy eating/healthy living curriculum to that sounds great, and it was lovely to see the kids in the market, but I wonder if they are reinventing an already successful, or at least extant, program.
Yesterday's menu:
Breakfast: giant biscuits
Lunch: japanese takeout
Dinner: chicken thighs in red wine, potatoes, corn relish, greens salad
Bonus: strawberry pie
Yesterday's run destination: around the neighborhood with a stop at Douglas Park
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