The Labor of Love Nutrition Center

Chicken parmesan is prepared in the teaching kitchen by Brenda Gay-Barker (r), kitchen program manager, and Denise Harris (l), a registered dietician who lives near Eastport. Both are instructors at the Nutrition Center.

The drive to create the Labor of Love Nutrition Center in Eastport, Maine began in 2007 when a GEECA (Greater Eastport Ecumenical Churches Association) volunteer at the local food pantry became concerned about the food choices available for clients. The pantry, no more than a little shed at the time, was stocked with a mix of unhealthy pre-packaged and healthy fresh foods - but the healthy fresh foods were consistently being returned. Pantry volunteers realized providing food alone was insufficient. Clients had become so habituated to convenience foods that cooking fresh, healthy food had become a lost art.

Poor nutrition and little income go hand-in-hand. Rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and the costs of healthcare and lost capacity and productivity are well known, so the volunteers ramped up their efforts and included a commercial kitchen into the food pantry project design. The resulting Nutrition Center/commercial kitchen allows for demonstrating cooking, canning and preserving real healthy food - all previously not available. The cooking classes are becoming the heart of the program.

GEECA has learned that the opportunity for creative value-added learning is unlimited. They're thinking about soap making classes, teaching canning and preserving techniques to maintain the nutritional integrity of fresh foods, working with local farmers to capture excess produce, and much more. In this economy they believe it's vitally important for people to feel empowered to work toward food security, and to learn how to garden, store and cook fresh local foods. Food is a powerful social tool as well, and a terrific way to build an interconnected community. The kitchen has become a terrific fundraising asset as well.

The group accessed HUD Small Cities Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dollars through a city of Eastport application to Maine's Department of Economic and Community Development, and raised their match through numerous fundraisers. Other funders included USDA Rural Development, local and regional foundations, and ecumenical partners. They began the project with a desire to improve the food pantry and a modest $5,000 - and credit CDBG with shortening their implementation timeline by several years.