September 19, 2014
Family Dinner at LECP
What better way to celebrate the start of fall than with a delicious community dinner outside complete with musical entertainment and lots of friends to play with? This was scene on Wednesday night at Lund’s Early Childhood Education Program at the Hoehl Family Building. Kirtani Mathauer, teacher in the young toddler room, led the event inspired by community cooking classes and dinners she had helped with at other early childhood programs. She was looking for a way for families to connect and spend some time together getting to know each other. Parents drop off their children at different times and so their paths may never cross despite their children spending all day together. This event was a chance to meet and eat together.
Research shows that eating together as a family is good for the brain, health and spirit of all family members. Yum!
The sun even made an appearance after a day of clouds and it was still warm enough to eat, play and dance outside. The menu consisted of pasta, meatballs, eggplant parm, salad, garlic bread, and dessert provided by LECP and also dishes brought by families. There were even enough leftovers to enjoy for lunch the next day. After dinner LECP teacher, Collin and his friend Kyle played music. There’s nothing like toddlers dancing with their friends to a John Prine cover in the waning light of an early fall evening to make you feel pretty good about the state of the world. The play structure built last Spring by volunteers from dealer.com served as great front row seating for the show and also provided the usual jumping and climbing entertainment for the children.
“I’m proud of the turnout,” said Kirtani, “one parent told me it was the best community dinner he’d been to at an education program because it was so relaxed and gave everyone the time to eat, have fun and talk.”
Healthy eating is a key priority at LECP as many of the children come from families struggling with food insecurity or limited access to nutritious food. The children eat meals and snacks family style and learn how to behave considerately at the table while they enjoy a wide variety of dishes cooked on site in the school kitchen. Lund is planning expand the food program to run parent-child cooking workshops. This will be helped by a recent generous grant from Seventh Generation that will provide the needed equipment to set the kitchen up efficiently and safely for the children.
Kirtani plans to organize another family dinner next year and attract even more families to share a meal together. Thank you to all the teachers who worked hard to make this event come together and to all the families who attended and brought food to share.
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