St. John's Bread & Life to Host National Food Day Open House

A popular Bed-Stuy food pantry is about to offer local chefs a few lessons in how to use technology to create a sustainable food environment.

St. John's Bread and Life, Brooklyn's innovative and life-saving food service program, is inviting Brooklyn chefs and purveyors out to an open house during National Food Day on Monday, October 24, from 6:30pm - 8:30pm to learn how the organization takes old-fashioned, locally grown organic produce and leverages the latest technology to deliver healthy, cost-effective meals to those in need.

National Food Day is a grassroots mobilization that seeks to improve America's food policies. St. John's Bread, located at 795 Lexington Avenue, and Life will be one of thousands of organizations around the country, on October 24th, celebrating and educating Americans on healthy, affordable and sustainable food.

"By reaching out to the many wonderful chefs and restaurant owners in Brooklyn, we're both soliciting their help for a worthy cause and sharing with them our own knowledge of providing wholesome, fresh, locally produced food," said Anthony Butler, executive director at St. John's Bread & Life.

Members of the Brooklyn food community will learn about the following programs at the St. John's Bread and Life soup kitchen, food pantry, and social service provider:

• Local Produce Link - In a cooperative effort to promote healthy nutrition in low income neighborhoods, Bread and Life serves as a link between upstate farmers ­- namely J. Glebocki Farms in Goshen N.Y. and Windflower Farm in Valley Falls, N.Y. - and local community members. Bread and Life also receives significant produce from United Way, City Harvest and Food Bank. Bread and Life, using CSA's innovative Hub and Spoke approach is a distributing site to other agencies as well. Participants receive fresh fruits, vegetables, and other farm produce in season.

• Nutrition Counseling - Learn more about the food pyramid and eating healthy through the organization's nutrition counseling program.

• Digital Choice Food Pantry - The unique and ground-breaking Digital Choice Food Pantry distributes uncooked meals to those who otherwise would not have food to feed their families. The Food Pantry is open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to noon, and Friday (for seniors only) from 9 a.m. to noon. The pantry is closed on the first Friday of each month.

• Soup Kitchen - St. John's Bread and Life's main Soup Kitchen serves breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday. All meals are planned and prepared under the guidance of a Certified New York State Nutritionist. Menus are developed based on our guests' nutritional needs and their cultural diversity, as well as quality and availability of products.

• Cooking Demonstrations - The organization regularly provides cooking demonstrations to those in the community to show them how to present healthy, cost-efficient meals for their families.

• Sponsor A Family - This holiday celebration ensures that Christmas is always merry, regardless of economic status. Bread and Life provides food and toy packages to two thousand families. Last Christmas, over 5,500 toys and 2,000 food packages were distributed to families and individuals. This year all food is being produced by New York State farmers and grown in a sustainable and healthy way.

To register for the event, visit Foodday.org.