Whole Foods, Sebastopol supports Ceres Project

Ceres Project is a wonderful cooperative effort engaging the efforts of young cooks who prepare nutritious meals for people in need. To learn more about the Project - please visit their web site - link below. To help contribute to this project, please shop at Whole Foods Sebastopol from September 29th through December 28th.

Whole Foods Sebastopol has selected the Ceres Project to be the recipient of the Envirocents Program from September 29 to December 28th. This is a great opportunity for us to raise money, but even more to spread the word about our work.

There will be posters in the store featuring Ceres, and our logo will be on the change boxes at each register.

Folks can choose to put their extra change in the boxes, and all of the bag donations will also come to us.

Whole Foods is also giving us three opportunities to table in front of the stores. We will be there on Sunday, October 19 from 11 - 1, and again on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and again in December.

Here's what you can do:

1. Spread the word among your circles and encourage them to take their bags to Whole Foods and to donate their change to us via the change boxes.

2. Put notices up on WACCO and in other newsletters you have access to.

3. Shop at Whole Foods often, take your own bags with you, and donate that $0.05 to Ceres.

4. Help out by volunteering to table October 19, November 23, or pick a date in December.

Thanks for helping to spread the word!

And here's the complete story:

Whole Foods Envirocents Program Helps Get Meals to Local Cancer Survivors

Grab your reusable grocery bag and head to Whole Foods in Sebastopol to help a local non-profit that’s touching a lot of lives with the healing power of food. From now through the end of December, The Ceres Community Project will be the beneficiary of Whole Foods-Sebastopol’s Envirocents Program.

Envirocents gives Whole Foods shoppers the option to donate five cents for every bag they bring in to a local non-profit organization. Change boxes at each register are designed to collect additional donations. Local non-profits get visibility as well as funds to support their work.

The Ceres Community Project, founded in March 2007, provides organic, nutrient-dense meals to families dealing with serious illness while training young chefs in the art of healthy cooking and eating. This year, Ceres will deliver more than 15,000 meals to individuals throughout Sonoma County. More than 100 teens from ten area high schools have worked as chefs in the project’s kitchen.

The majority of the project’s clients are dealing with cancer and the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Here’s what one of those clients had to say about the difference that The Ceres Community Project made for her and her family.

“I don't know how to fully express what a lifesaver the Ceres Project food was for me during my chemo. Having food already prepared, tasty food which I knew was good for me and helping me fight the cancer, made my life so much easier during an extremely difficult time. As it came to the end of the treatment, I grew more and more fatigued but there were things I really wanted to be able to do. It was important to me to help with my daughter's 8th grade play and graduation. After nine years of being an active volunteer in her school, especially with the plays, it would have been a shame to not be able to work on her last play. If I hadn't had the Ceres food waiting for me, I wouldn't have been able to handle it.”

Each Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, teen volunteers gather at The Community Church of Sebastopol’s commercial kitchen to chop, sauté, whisk, bake and roast their way through cases of mostly donated local organic food. The teens learn first hand about the relationship between the food we eat and our health, develop their culinary skills and discover how simple it is to make a difference in their world.

If you’d like to learn more about The Ceres Community Project visit their website, www.ceresproject.org . If you know someone who needs food support, call Cherie at 823-2529. If you are a teen or adult who would like to volunteer, call Judi at 829-8295. And from now until the end of December, visit Whole Foods Sebastopol with your reusable bag in hand. Donate that five cents – and whatever change you have – to The Ceres Community Project. If each of us gives a little, we can make a big difference for our neighbors who are struggling with illness, and for the young people who are becoming the leaders of the future.


Cathryn Couch
707-799-7489
www.kitchencosmology.com
"Humans are tuned for relationship. The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, nostrils -- all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness." - David Abrams, The Spell of the Sensuous