GNH: Vegan Meal Planning

 

 

 

 

 

Project Summary

Purpose

  • This project is an exciting opportunity to experience the process of planning, preparing and serving healthy-low-cost meals to the community.
  • Students will create healthy vegan recipes for our Meatless Monday community lunch, and learn how to scale recipes up to suit a large group of 35-40 people. The recipes must align with our Food Philosophy, kitchen space, budget, food availability and community needs.

Areas of Focus

  • Food and nutrition literacy
  • Healthy and low-cost meal planning and preparation

Skills

  • Nutritional assessment of recipes
  • Recipe, meal and dining experience evaluation

Special Considerations

  • A cleared Criminal Record Check (CRC) will be required for working with vulnerable adults and children (this is a specific CRC)

Location

Background Information

Community Lunches at Gordon House are an opportunity for community members to enjoy a meal together, meet new people, and catch up with friends in a casual environment. The nutritious, low-cost lunches are made possible by a great group of volunteers who prepare, set-up for, serve, and clean-up after the lunch.

  • We serve lunch Monday to Thursday from 12-1pm at Gordon Neighbourhood House, with rotating menus and themes planned by our Chefs, Farmer and volunteers (including Meatless Monday, Nourish Bowl Wednesdays and a 3-course meat-ful meal on Tuesdays and Thursdays). Meals are either pay-what- you-can or $5.
  • During the growing season, the Farmer grows and brings produce from the 4 urban farm sites for the Chef to incorporate into the lunches. The Community Lunches and associated initiatives support our Food Philosophy, and our work as a Good Food Organization. http://cfccanada.ca/good-food-organizations

Organization Information

Name

Gordon Neighbourhood House

Vision + Mission

Vision: As a place-based community organization, we work alongside our community, sister organizations, local businesses and policy-makers to animate and support dynamic programs, services and initiatives that respond to the needs and dreams of the community.

Mission: Gordon Neighbourhood House strives to ensure that the West End of Vancouver is a vibrant and active community, where everyone is empowered to play an active role in civil society.

Principles + Goals

  • Gordon Neighbourhood House offers a wide variety of programs (many of which are related to food).
  • Our Food Philosophy is detailed on our website: http://gordonhouse.org/about-gordon-neighbourhood-house/right-to-food/
  • Gordon Neighbourhood House uses food to nourish our community in a variety of ways, including the facilitation of intercultural exchange and dialogue, community capacity-building, and community development.

Principles:

  • An understanding that food brings us together and can act as vehicle for community-building.
  • A recognition that all members of our community have a Right to Food based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while also acknowledging that we as a community enjoy various levels of access to food.
  • A commitment to sharing fresh, non-expired, healthy, and locally-sourced food whenever possible.
  • A commitment to sharing food that is nutrient-dense, low in refined sugar and sodium, and not overly-processed.
  • A commitment to working toward increased access to food for those who are nutritionally vulnerable.
  • A commitment to providing opportunities for increased food literacy and community capacity-building for our neighbours.
  • A commitment to sharing foods that reflect the diversity of our community, city, country and world.
  • An awareness of the impact that our food choices have on the environment.
  • A commitment to the reduction of our organizational ecological footprint by minimizing packaging and ongoing composting.
  • Support for the development of urban farms and healthy food cooperatives.

Primary Contact

  • Contact Person(s): Katelyn Ling
  • Email: Katelyn@gordonhouse.org
  • Address: 1019 Broughton Street
  • Phone: 604 683 2554
  • Website: www.gordonhouse.org
  • Best time(s) method(s) to contact: Email

Project Description

  • Students will create healthy vegan recipes for our Meatless Monday community lunch, and learn how to scale recipes up to suit a large group of 35-40 people. The recipes must align with our Food Philosophy, kitchen space, budget, food availability and community needs.
  • The outcome will be to create a bank of appropriately-scaled healthy vegan recipes and resources for the Meatless Monday Chef. Students can base their recipes off the nutritional assessment + recommendations developed by the Fall 2017 LFS student group. We are also interested in having the students come in to prepare some vegan meals that can be frozen or canned for future use.

Skills Preferred

  • Interpersonal skills
  • Basic cooking and/or baking experience; Food Safety certificate is an asset
  • Experience or awareness in working with vulnerable populations

Preferred Days of Week and Hours

  • To be determined with the Community Programmer. Research can be done off-site.

Project/Partner Orientation

  • Orientation will be with the whole student group. Students will ideally help set up and serve community lunch (at least one lunch) at Gordon House to get oriented to the kitchen, staff and community (Mon-Thurs 10-1:30pm). The Community Programmer will share some international food guide resources with the students, as well as our existing lunch recipes and menus.

Experiential Learning Opportunities

  • Students can dive into learning about our Food Programs and Philosophy by volunteering for the West End Food Festival, organized by Gordon House between September 21-26th.

They can also experience our other Food programs first-hand by participating in our bike-powered affordable mobile market called Gordon Greens (Thursdays 9:30-12:30), or the Produce Market at the Community Food Hub (Fridays 9-12pm). They can also come farming at our 4 urban farm sites, to learn more about growing food farm to table.

Expected Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

I hope students will learn about:

  • Healthy meal planning
  • Community engagement and development

I think students will come to appreciate:

  • The importance to community members of having a safe welcoming place to enjoy a community meal that is healthy and affordable.
  • What goes into running a community lunch program at a non-profit neighbourhood association.

Organizational Outcomes

  • Support in offering community lunches
  • Support and ‘fresh’ perspectives on our typical lunch menu items and community lunch process.
source: https://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:LFS350/Projects/W2018/GNHVeganMealPlan