Food First NL’s SCOFF initiatives celebrate, share, and build upon the traditional food knowledge of seniors in our province.
We've produced an 8-part SCOFF videos series on seniors food knowledge, and most recently, we invited senior groups across the province to apply for funding from Food First NL, so they could host a community project or workshop that would improve food skills and knowledge, and therefore, food security for seniors in their area.
SCOFF initiatives also acknowledge the social isolation common among our senior population, and the power of food in bringing people and communities together.
Food First NL recently funded 10 SCOFF community projects, which are all listed on the SCOFF page of our website. Below are quick summaries of 3 of them.
Lunch n' Learn Series:
The Community Cafe Committee in Port aux Basques
The community café committee was created to promote social inclusion and healthy eating among seniors. The intention of this Lunch’n’Learn was to get seniors in the community together, over a nice hot meal, and promote the local community garden, and the kinds of produce that can be grown in Port Aux Basques. This included a showcase of the goods yielded from the garden.
The event also discussed other ways to grow your own food in the area, as well as a thorough discussion on the new food guide, which included the use of the “Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide” document. The local fire hall hosted the event, and it was attended by a large, engaged crowd of 100 people; nearly double what they anticipated.
Freezing Fruits and Vegetables Workshop:
The Norpen Aboriginal Women's Circle in Port Saunders
To address the common complaint among its members, of food going bad in the fridge before it could be used, The Norpen Aboriginal Women’s Group wanted to share ways of preserving fruits and vegetables to increase the shelf life of these goods, as learn how to prepare them before preserving them so that they’d be ready for easy future use in healthy, convenient meals like stir frys, salads, and smoothies.
Their event ended with a few games of bingo, and everyone went home fed, and with the recipes and food skills they needed to prevent future food spoilage at home. Mission accomplished.
Healthy Eating for Healthy Ageing Workshop:
Placentia Area-Cape Shore Community Connections
This seniors group invited Melissa Caravan, a Regional Dietitian of Eastern Health, to give an hour-long presentation on healthy eating for healthy ageing to its members.
Melissa provided copies of a government publication called “Easy, Tasty … Nutritious Healthy Eating for Healthy Ageing” to facilitate their discussion, and to provide a takeaway that had a lot of nutritious recipes to try at home. The presentation went over the basics of healthy eating, like food guide details, portion sizes, and how to read and understand nutritional labels.
The second half of the event was hands-on, and attendees got to put what they learned to the test in the kitchen by making fish cakes and banana muffins. After feeding their brains with new skills, they got to feed their bellies with the fruits of the day’s labour, and a warm cup of tea.
