One, two, three, four.

Get my shoes then out the door.

Five I'm alive, six, seven, eight feelin' great.

Nine, gonna shine, life is good I'm doing fine.

Ten, Gonna do it right then do it again.

Yeah yeah.

I look up to the sky with all the beautiful color but, there's more than just for me so gonna share it with another.

I got to show, to give, let out, I want to sing and shout.

Take a look and see A beautiful morning that turns into beautiful evening.

And together make a beautiful life.

And if you want see, then come along with me.

That's right.

Hey, I'm Iris, Dave, and welcome to experience michiana Why am I here?

Up on a balcony beside the Riverwalk in Mishawaka?

Well, you'll find out on next week's show.

But this week, it's all about food.

Kelly went to the michiana Veg Fest to find out about that coming up soon.

Also, I went to Unity Gardens, one of my favorite places in South Bend.

But first, all three of us got together, which, by the way, I think it's the first time we've all been together in months.

So Kelly, Courtney and myself, we went to cultivate food to find out about what they do.

Well, everyone eats food, but some people don't always have access to that.

And that's what's so great to have something like this here right in our community, cultivate food rescue.

And you're one of the co-founders for this organization.

And you guys are coming up celebrating five years of being in the area.

Yes.

Yeah.

Five years is a big deal as as a business to be around that long, have the business to fail and that amount of time.

But we've been very successful.

But we're tackling a need that's really important in our community.

And we're accomplishing a lot of objectives doing that.

So from feeding people that are food insecure in a community to being more sustainable as a community, education, sustainability, education for our kids.

So a lot of really needed things in our community.

And certainly hunger is one of those areas that we're really focused on.

Now you guys support the Saint Joseph County primarily, but you're also starting to expand a little bit more.

To what area do you cover?

Yeah, we serve three counties.

So Saint Joe County, where we're physically located, Elkhart County and Marshall County as well.

So roughly about 40% of our output is in Saint Joe, 40% in Elkhart and 20% in Marshall County.

And how many people are you serving?

Yeah.

So right now we have two programs.

The first program that we started was a school backpack program of frozen meals, which is that's how I originally heard about you guys.

That's kind of what you're known for.

Yeah, I. I believe we're the only frozen meal backpack program in the country.

Googled it and look for other options.

But I think we're the only frozen meal option out there.

And and we do that because the we're trying to provide an entire meal to a child that struggling over the weekend with food insecurity.

So it's a it's a protein, it's a starch, it's a vegetable.

We'll be serving 1200 kids in all three counties.

So that's 7200 meals a week, all with food that would have been disposed of.

So tell us a little bit about it, because I'm a little bit familiar with Cultivate, but if you want to tell our viewers, how does that process work?

Because it's not just feeding, but you're also, you know, using sustainable resources.

And how does that whole process come to be?

Yeah, it's really, really a lot of collaboration around food businesses and so grocery stores, any any food business on the supply chain.

So a farm, a food distributor, a grocery store, a university like Notre Dame, a restaurant like four winds, an event like center like Century Center.

So it's taking all these food businesses that we have in our community and making sure they don't they don't throw any food away.

And it's not you know, I think one thing that's really important to say, it's not spoiled food.

It's it's not it's safe.

It's not expired.

It's not spoiled.

It's just overproduce.

Overbuy it over made.

And it's like when you have that party, you invite 100 people and only 60 show up.

Yeah, that's exactly what it's like.

So we rescue food that's already made but never served.

So it's never been out on a buffet table, but it's sitting in the kitchen ready to go out there.

And like you said, he planned on 1200 to show up to the MLK event at Century Center and 900 people came.

That's 300 meals.

So we get a waiting.

Yeah, we get a phone call from the chef at the Century Center.

He says, Hey, I've got 300 extra meals.

Will you come pick this up tomorrow?

So what he does is after the event is over, he puts it in his freezer.

Later it cools down properly.

We come in the next day, we pick it up, we bring it back here to our volunteers, put it into containers with three compartments, and those containers are then frozen.

And then we distribute that to kids in schools every single weekend while they're in school.

And what I also love about that process, too, is, is that you guys actually put them in a backpack so that the kids aren't being singled out there, maybe aren't feeling embarrassed yet insecure about having to take food home for their family over the weekend.

Yeah.

So we have kind of to I mean, right now, a lot of our meals are going out just in plastic sacks.

So a little bit indiscrete.

We we still do some of the backpacks.

The backpacks are a little difficult for the schools to manage.

So a lot of our meals are actually going out and a plastic grocery type sack with six meals.

And so for breakfast meals and then for lunch dinner meals.

So and none of the meals are the same.

Okay, so the idea is that the child is not going to be a whole weekend of the same thing of yeah, yeah.

So, you know, Monday through Friday, kids that are in free or reduced lunch get meals from the school, breakfast and lunch.

But then Saturday and Sunday, there's a gap that we're trying to fill.

And so we're trying to provide six meals.

And the meals are probably too large.

We focus on K through second graders.

Okay?

So we work with each of the schools.

The schools actually pick the children out in their program and we take the schools and meals and then they hand it to the kids as they're leaving school that day on Friday.

That's amazing.

And obviously, you have a lot of volunteers who have to make this happen.

Yeah.

How many volunteers you usually have on a weekly basis?

Yeah.

So about 400 to 500 a month, depending on how many volunteer sessions that we set up.

We have a backlog probably of about 6 to 8 weeks, almost at all times for volunteers come in.

Volunteers are a huge part.

There's there's no way we could do this without our volunteer base.

Just super dedicated people that find 2 hours, you know, in a day, in a week and a month and every three months, whatever it is, they come in and say, hey, we want to help, want to help out people in the community, and we want to be a more sustainable community.

Absolutely.

And not just the frozen food, but you also have a component that includes the fresh warm, the fresh items.

Yep.

Breads and things like that.

And that you coordinate with the food pantry.

We do.

So we have two programs that really focus on perishable food, so different than what our food bank does.

Right?

So the food bank focuses on non-perishables, but they also don't.

They also bring in perishable food items for people in need.

We focus on totally rescuing the food.

That's our sole source of food.

We we buy very little food.

So we're bringing in dairy items, protein, fruits and vegetables.

And then our pantry program, a lot of that food's coming from our local grocery stores, maybe cold storage warehouses located in or outside of our community.

We're bringing those items in and we're shipping them to our pantries or they're coming and picking them up here.

It's free to the pantries.

So there's no cost.

We get the food for free, so we want to pass along for free and then we depend on community members to help us with financial donations so that we can do that.

So we have a lot of great pantries.

There's about 130 pantries in our three county, and they're filled with amazing people trying to help their neighbors, neighbors have something to eat.

So we're just there to support them in their efforts.

And it's actually a huge blessing for us to be able to do that.

Absolutely.

Well, if anybody wants to get more information, whether they want to donate or volunteer or if they want to work to partner with you to to maybe provide some extra food that they have leftover, how can they get in contact.

Yeah.

So our website good www cultivate culinary com our Facebook page we try to put up in social media LinkedIn as well.

We try to put a lot of information out there just to show the community that what we're doing in the community, we have there's a lot of food that's wasted, about 133 billion pounds of food every year is wasted.

So on a daily basis, just to kind of give you a visual, it's enough to fill up the Rose Bowl from the bottom to the top, from the bottom to the top, from the bottom.

So it's hard to it's hard to like for most people to realize how much food that's actually wasted.

But there's enough food being wasted in our community.

This is our fundamental belief.

There's enough food being waste in our community to feed all that.

It's all that are hungry in our community.

So that's about 68,000 people in total and 24,000 of those people are children.

Like as a society, we should not accept our children going hungry like this is a problem that we can fix.

We don't have a food scarcity issue.

We don't have a food production issue, we have a food waste issue, and we've just have to be planned for it and put in infrastructure and logistics to make sure that food doesn't go to waste.

So that's what we're trying to do here at Cultivate.

And you guys are doing amazing stuff.

Thank you for being such a tremendous and important part of our community here now.

Thanks for coming in today.

This is great.

I think we're going to go check it out a little bit, if that's okay.

Sounds good.

Dave and Kelly are here.

That's my kind of meal for Thanksgiving.

I feel like one person is going to get a meal and something different is going to be about it.

Because I'm involved with this, and it looks like we have chicken, potatoes and carrots.

I'm gonna mess something up.

I'm going to just tell them off.

Well, let's get.

And of course, this is all repurposed food, which is just fantastic.

So there's even a little label on there which is fantastic, too.

And these meals also frozen, which is nice, helps you scoop that potatoes in there.

There they go.

All right.

You're up for carrots.

Yeah.

Can I have one to go up in here?

Maybe not.

No.

Wrong, but there was a time where I actually was getting good food out of it.

Yeah, I have a kind of a medical issue, you know, and, and also because of insurance, wasn't able to work and get the money that I used to.

And so food was really hard to get.

And so they would I would meet them at the farmer's market every Saturday and they would give me tons of food.

Yeah, yeah.

It really helped me out so much.

And the food was so good that I had to tell the kids, like, this is my food.

Like, Go get your own, it's mine.

And I was so grateful for them.

So they do such wonderful work.

There's so many people in the community that just as myself, we're in that situation and it's great to have cultivate in our community to help those when they're in need.

So it was great.

so this is almost the finish.

But when you see over here, this is the really cool part.

So they put them in here, goes through the machine and then everything is sealed off and ready to go get it.

Oh, my gosh.

I am here at Unity Gardens in South Bend, which is one of our best local nonprofits.

And if you don't already know about them, then you should pay close attention to this segment because the work they do here in the community is wonderful.

And I'm here with Micah.

How are you doing?

Good.

How are you?

You're petting that spider witch.

So what is going on here exactly?

Well, spiders are really important in the garden and it is currently spider web season.

As you've all noticed out there.

You can see the beautiful dewdrops on them and everything.

So we love our spiders.

Don't kill them, they're hopeful, they're beneficial, but they're all out because we are getting into spooky season.

And spooky season means the Unity Garden Spooktacular, which is our zombie trail this year, our West Side Zombie Trail.

So we're going to try to round up all the forgotten souls of the west side of South Bend and bring them out for a great night on October 28th.

So Friday at the end of the month and we'll have our haunted trail with them.

We'll have our Nelson's porta pit fundraiser.

So if you need dinner, come on over.

We'll have games and activities for the kids.

We'll have food and general fun for all ages.

I love it.

And to have Nelson's there as well because it will probably be a chilly evening, you know, and there's something about their potatoes.

I don't know what it is that they do with them.

Potatoes.

Come get them.

Yeah.

So it's great that they're going to be out and about and is this, you know, is there a charge for people to come?

And no, the event itself is free, always, always free, so that we can get everyone in our community to come and have that opportunity.

The Nelsons, you will pay for the meal and then our other vendors will be there.

You know, they'll pay your price, but for us we'll have free hot chocolate, free popcorn.

And then all the events and the the activities for the kids will be without cost.

You know, fall has always been my favorite time of the year, although I say autumn, what is it called, fall?

Can we can we change that to just autumn?

No, no.

All right, that's cool.

Fall plans.

Fall.

Okay.

They don't autumn .

It's such a nicer word, though, but yeah, you know, you mention hot chocolate and stuff.

I'm starting to think about all those things that I do, though.

Even pumpkin spice, all the cliche things, the smells.

Yeah.

So, girl.

Yeah, I just.

I love everything to do with fall.

It's so beautiful.

And coming out to Unity Gardens, there's so many people who probably pass by here or pass by a couple of miles away and don't even know that it's here.

So can you just let people watching know exactly what Unity Gardens does overall, though, as well, so they can really feel the connection of supporting these events?

Yeah.

So when you come here, we're inside our our new welcome center building right now that we're finishing up and outside, there are seven acres of free pit gardens with fruits and vegetables.

We have everything from apple trees to raspberry brambles to all of your normal garden vegetables, which are slowly starting to decline.

Now, you know, it's that season, but we have chickens and goats.

We have areas for the kids to play, places to sit down and just enjoy paths that you can walk through and look at native plantings and getting just in touch with your yourself and nature and just have a quiet space here in the heart of town.

We're so used to doing something I've been focusing on lately.

We're so used to doing, but it takes a lot of learning to just be.

And that's the one good thing about nature in Unity Gardens is that in a world that can be very chaotic for a lot of people, it's a real slice.

I've just been you don't have to think about anything, is simply sitting is doing it's doing something.

Yeah.

And it's great for that.

I know you got a taste of unity coming up as well.

So that's that's a big event.

And I know it's a big event for fundraising and a big event for supporting the whole mission.

So what's a taste of unity?

Yeah, taste.

Unity.

That's why our spiders wear black, you know, because it's fancy.

Fancy.

It's like life.

Lifetime taste of unity is our big fall gala.

We haven't done it in a couple of years because of the pandemic and everything.

So we're really excited to bring it back.

This year we have a waiting list of local chefs, really excellent restaurants and people in our community, and it's kind of like a harvest celebration where we bring together everyone.

We get together over good food and company and celebrate the work that's been done all growing season long and just enjoy one another's company, enjoy good food, enjoy knowing that like we're we're doing something and we're all part of something that's a lot bigger than just any one person sitting here.

And of course, what it all really comes down to is making healthy foods available to everybody.

Yeah, that's the point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And just teaching people how to be self-sufficient and and be able to even grow them themselves.

Yeah, yeah.

We've got classes in.

Check out our website, check out our website for our classes and events that are all free and open to the public so that you can come in and learn about that.

You know, we're going to talk about like putting your garden to bed, how to start seeds in the winter time, how to plan a good garden so that when spring comes, it's ready.

All of that various locations here, Potawatami Conservatory, some of the libraries, that sort of thing.

So I love it.

Well, look, as much as you're talking and I'm talking, I think the real star of the interview is the person who's been standing so still beside us.

What person you don't see here?

No.

Huh?

It's just a window.

If you ever wondered what it would be like to be a vegetarian or a vegan, you are in luck because Michigan Vegfest 2022 is back.

And I have to tell you ladies, so this is Karen, Jeanne and Kristy.

So thank you so much for being here.

Oh, by the way.

Right.

The purple porch.

And I want to just say that this is one of my favorite places, the breakfast burrito here I like to die for.

But we'll find out more about the food here.

But listen, we're so excited to have veggie fest because I remember going in 2019 and that was kind of the last one before the pandemic, wasn't it?

You're exactly right.

We did have to postpone a couple of times and we're so excited to be offering it again this year on Sunday, October 23rd at Century Center.

Yes.

And we are so excited.

The community is really excited because I remember being there in 2019 and it was packed.

We were expecting about well at that one, about 2000 people and we ended up having about 4000.

So we really anticipate having about that same number of people at Veg Fest this year.

Now, why do you think that the idea of becoming a vegetarian or vegan is growing right now?

I think there's a lot of coverage about we all should be more concerned about our health and the research.

Clearly links plant based eating to, you know, lower cholesterol numbers, fewer heart attacks, elimination or lowering of diabetes.

It's, you know, weight control.

It's really important from our health, but we're also very concerned about our planet and about the animals.

So those are our three taglines, more or less for the planet, for the animals and for your health.

So I'm kind of interested.

What what was your decision to kind of make that move?

I was actually directing a program that was teaching plant based eating to help reverse heart disease.

And so when I got the job, they said, oh, would you be willing to try this?

And I said, Yes, I'd love to.

And that's how I learned how to be a vegetarian.

And it was like a year later and I said, I'm going all the way vegan, so.

Wow.

And what about you, Jeanne?

Well, Karen and I have been friends for a while, and I was interested in supporting Veggie Fest, and I gradually became a vegan, as many people do a transition.

And then somebody said, Well, why did you do that?

I said, I feel better.

I'm no longer taking any medications which I thought was kind of awesome.

And so I was happy to support this.

I've been interested in supporting our community and there's a growing group of people who are interested in healthier eating and what is veganism and that kind of thing.

So this is a wonderful way to come and explore, find opportunities and resources and just learn more about it.

And wonderful samples and food for sale, too.

Yes.

And you know, there's a big misperception, conception about I think a lot of time people think, well, what am I going to eat?

I want to eat more than salad.

It's only salad and maybe some fruit, but there's a whole lot more.

Oh, there are whole grains, protein galore.

I mean, that's one of the biggest questions we get.

Where am I going to get my protein?

Yes.

So we want to show people that vegan vegetarian food looks good, taste good and smells good and is satisfying.

Yes, it is.

So now it's October 23rd, right?

And it's 10 to 5 p.m., 11 to 511 center.

We have the entire upper floor of century center.

So the chef demonstrations are in one room and it's a little quieter.

The vendors are noisy in a different room and then our speakers are in Bendix theater and the schedule will be is on the website for the different speakers Alan Goldhammer, Robert Cheek and we have John Lewis, who calls himself the vegan.

It's fun and just, you know, it's free, so just come in and enjoy it.

So we even have vegan jerky.

So that's a new product for us to carry.

And I think people will be interested in trying it out.

And excuse me, but we have a large kids area too, so lots of fun things for the kids to do and some free yoga demonstrations and music this year.

That's really you know, I just again, remember being there in 2019 and I have to say it was crowded.

There was a great 20 people in there.

But it was this excitement in the community, the event that this was available because this has been available in many other places, but now it's right here in our community.

And you really do have this sense of people wanting to learn more and more about it individually for their families.

And again, I love the idea of, you know, also for people that love animals and they just want to, you know, they have a compassion for them.

So this is great.

I'm so excited and I'm also so excited to try this food show today.

Okay.

All right.

So we're happy to come.

So I have been to Veg Fest as a as a what I want to say vendor.

No, no.

I mean, not just as a participate, as a pro came as a spectator, I guess.

And I wandered around and I loved it.

So I'm so happy now to be able to come as a vendor and so purple, which is actually we're a small kitchen.

And so we have the ability to be versatile with the things that we do.

And so we often try to address certain dietary restrictions or requests that we get.

And so on this at this event, we're actually going to be bringing this is our Mac and Peas.

So this is a vegan version of a, you know, standard, typical macaroni and cheese.

And so we make the sauce with some secret ingredients, with some cashews, and we have some fried onions on top and some dill.

So it's really nice.

So if you're this opportunity is great for like trying all of the foods that you haven't been able to try or maybe you've never cooked that way before.

So this is great to try out different things.

Well, I do have a problem with it, though.

What is that?

Where's my fork problem?

Oh, my God.

It looks really good.

Yeah, so this is really good.

And it's it's just a really great any time of the year type of dish.

So now you're making it while you're there.

But I think a lot of people sometimes have a fear.

I going to be able to make this food on my own if I decide to become a vegan.

Yeah, I think it's very easy and there's just a couple switches that you need to make, and once you get the hang of it, you find that things are really versatile.

So this actually uses soaked cashews, which is like a great alternative when you're looking to make something like creamy and rich.

So it's like a nice secret thing that we use a lot here.

So and I'll just say this you can find all the ingredients, but oh, and what is that?

And so this is a so this is our Veggie Tabata sandwich.

So this actually has we actually sprout the sprouts here in our store.

We couldn't find a good source for them, so we decided to start growing them ourselves.

So it's a nice little addition to the sandwich and it has an avocado pesto sauce on it and it's just really great.

It's local greens, local tomatoes, local cucumbers.

So it's a really, really tasty sandwich.

And we just started carrying this full time now in our grab and go case.

And so we're also going to be bringing this to the bench first, sell them back.

And that's another thing that that really height that you're highlighting it as the local supplies here, the local community that that can supply things like that.

Exactly.

We want local we do have a few vendors from out of town, like from Chicago, because sometimes we end up purchasing some of our products online.

If we can't find them locally.

But you know, we totally support places like Purple Porch because you can get everything you want here.

And on our website, we also have a lot of recipes.

But if somebody wants to go vegan, you know, the Internet is amazing.

Just so many recipes that you can easily download.

And then we also have is it veg edu?

Veg edu is an educational arm.

I mean, our whole intent is to educate, but we work specifically with folks that are at risk, whether it's health or socioeconomic risk.

And, you know, we want everybody to know that plant based eating is can be less expensive than regular typical American diet.

Okay.

Well, ladies, thank you so much for being with us.

And again, it's Sunday, October 23rd, from 11 to 5 p.m. at the Century Center.

All right, ladies, free and it's free is absolutely free.

And so is the food right now.

So I'm about to go get my fork and just kind of chow down.

Yeah, that's mine.

Where's yours?

Yeah, so we had a lot of food to experience this week here on Experience Michiana Next week.

We've got some more food and some other things that we're going to be experiencing.

Don't forget, if there's something that you think we should go and experience, just use the hashtag Experience Michiana or follow us on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram and send us a message on there.

Maybe there's something that you did, you and your partner, you and your family, and you want us to go and experience it and show it here on WNIT Just let us know until next week.

We'll see you.

experience Machiana is made possible in par by the Community Foundation of Saint Joseph County and the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the state of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.