There have been so many beautiful partnerships that have come out of Vermont Everyone Eats. This week we are highlighting Burlington Children’s Space and their partnership with North End restaurant favorites, Little Morocco and Butch & Babes. Thank you Erinn Simon at BCS for sharing these words!
In what ways has the Burlington Children’s Space had to adapt since the start of COVID?
We delayed reopening until July 6th, and when we did reopen it was with very few kids and staff in the building. We spent weeks before opening working on safety protocols and developing new systems to make sure we were following all of the guidelines and really putting best practices into play to keep everyone safe. It felt like an enormous undertaking but our staff is extremely dedicated. We worked hard and put all of our trust in each other and we got to a place where we felt we were doing everything we could to welcome kids and families back as safely as possible.
Everything we do looks different now – curriculum, mealtimes, family communication and staff meetings, etc., all have changed in the COVID era. We’ve adapted as well as we can and we feel like we’re still making magic happen, even though we’re a little further apart, with masks on!
Every week you walk over to Butch and Babes or Little Morocco to pick-up meals for families. Can you tell me a little more about that? And what that partnership means to you?
We’ve been receiving meals every week from Little Morocco Cafe on Mondays and Butch and Babe’s on Thursdays. We drive across the way to Little Morocco to pick up the meals because they tend to be big and we can’t quite fit all of them in our wagon! Thursdays we walk across North Winooski Ave to Butch and Babes to pick up.
It’s been really great to connect with both of these neighborhood spots through this program. We love the idea of working with businesses right on our block in our beloved Old North End to feed our community! In normal times BCS holds bi-monthly family dinners, and taste tests and other community events. We LOVE to connect with our families around food and we’ve really missed that part of our program during COVID. So partnering with folks so close to us for Everyone Eats has felt really good.
How would you explain the Everyone Eats program to someone who has never heard of it?
I would say it’s an amazing program that pairs organizations with local restaurants to feed folks who’ve been affected by COVID – which is all of us! Restaurants make meals to go and organizations pick them up and distribute them – such a brilliant model and so easy.
Food security is an issue that we think and talk about all the time at BCS, and we like to give food to folks whenever and however we can, so this program is like a dream come true. We love that it supports local restaurants, community organizations, and PEOPLE with good food. We firmly believe that access to good food is a right for all, and Everyone Eats gets that!
We firmly believe that access to good food is a right for all, and Everyone Eats gets that!
Erinn Simon
To learn more about Everyone Eats visit shiftmeals.org/everyoneeats.