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Fireside Meet-Up at Quogue Wildlife Refuge

Thank you Quogue Wildlife Refuge for hosting us. It was an amazing opportunity for our Board to meet so many people from our amazing East End community. We love discussing our programs, and we are so happy so many of you are interested in what we do. Slow Food East End Feed the Forks program shared some cider and soup from Sydney’s with friends & neighbors. A big thank you to Jessica Easton owner at Belle and Whistle Weddings for sponsoring the event. We are especially grateful for the number of people who showed interest in volunteering their time to help us this year in our programs.
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๐…๐ฅ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐๐จ๐ฐ๐ž๐ซ: Our community of bakers provides home-baked loaves of bread to local food pantries. Since our launch in 2021, we have been providing to the North Fork Apostolate and are excited to announce that this program will also be offered at CAST North Fork.
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๐„๐๐ข๐›๐ฅ๐ž ๐’๐œ๐ก๐จ๐จ๐ฅ ๐†๐š๐ซ๐๐ž๐ง๐ฌ: We have one of the most successful Slow Food school garden programs in the U.S. with a mission to reconnect children and their families with real food while empowering and inspiring our local communities to eat well. Each year we give out $10,000 to schools for garden tools, supplies, and materials. Applications for grants up to $1,000 each are accepted on a rolling basis. We already received a grant application from a local school that stopped by this gathering!ย 
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๐‚๐ก๐ž๐Ÿ๐ฌ ๐ญ๐จ ๐’๐œ๐ก๐จ๐จ๐ฅs: We create partnerships between chefs and schools in our community to help educate students about food and healthy eating habits. We are looking forward to showing students, parents, and the school community how accessible and healthy the food around us is. We will provide simple recipes, tips, and tricks so that everyone can up their healthy food game.
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The ๐…๐ฎ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ž ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐…๐จ๐ซ๐ค๐ฌ initiative is an effort to get the next generation more aware and involved in where their food is coming from. We are offering volunteer opportunities to our local youth that not only gives them a chance to document community service hours for school but also give them the chance to learn valuable life lessons in agriculture, sustainability & community. We are also creating a grant application for Seniors in High School on the East End who plan to attend college for agricultural courses or similar studies that align with Slow Foodโ€™s mission.
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It’s only January, we are just getting started.ย  Stay tuned for what’s to come for the rest of 2023. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on socials to stay updated on all our activities. In the meantime, check out these from the event!
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Thank You to Our Feed the Forks Silent Auction Donors

Our Feed the Forks silent auction was open to bidding between November 7 – 14 and overall we raised $18,750 for Feed the Forks! The proceeds will go directly to fund school garden programs; providing resiliency grants for food providers in times of need; maintaining and promoting Flour Power, a grass roots bread baking program to support food pantries; developing and presenting Chef Series programing and much more.

The silent auction was filled with incredible items donated by local businesses. From CSAs to local restaurant gift cards, food was front and center in the items open to bidding, but it also included everything from custom fishing rods to stays at local bed and breakfasts! Thank you to everyone who placed their bids and helped spread the word, and thank you of course to our many amazing donors:

 

Al Goldberg
Captains Cookie & Mike Slade
David Chaffin
ย Pennie Schwartz