Mindful Littles and MySustainableTable teamed up again for another Cookin’ for a Cause event, and this time we got to make over 300 meals for the Bay Area Rescue Mission. The Bay Area Rescue Mission has been around since 1965, providing food, shelter, clothes and resources for homeless people in Northern California.  In the Bay Area alone, there are over 150,000 extremely low-income people and 35,000 homeless people.   In fact San Francisco has the highest per capita rate of homelessness in any major American city.  In one dinner alone, Bay Area Rescue Mission serves 300 people, and with the help of organizations like ours, we can make a small difference to help the shelter deliver it’s mission.

We kicked off our event talking briefly about why we were there, and had the chance to read a wonderful book called “Before We Eat: From Farm to Table,” which highlights all the people who work to produce our meals- from the farmers to grocery store clerks.  Sometimes we forget to pause and appreciate the importance of these individual contributors who make our meals.  Yesterday our Mindful Littles families were also part of the chain of activities required to produce the 300 meals, as together we chopped, prepared and cooked a healthy, “mostly” organic meal of basil pesto chicken and pasta.

In addition to the magical cooking practice, we were also able to step outside with the littles to learn about mindful eating from a local dietician, Malu Trehan of Wellness Within. Malu led the littles through a mindful eating activity with a raisin, where we held a single raisin in our hand, then noticed, felt, smelled and slowly tasted the small piece of dried fruit. One little even commented how delicious the single tiny raisin was, which is not something we tend to realize.

When we delivered the warm meals to the the Bay Area Rescue Mission right after our event, the shelter was extremely appreciative of our efforts.  Mindful Littles is grateful that we could round out 2017 with one final event to help local individuals in great need and look forward to many more Cookin’ for a Cause events in 2018. #communitylove #happynewyear