RFS in Farm to School guide!

The Real Food Show is in the NW Regional Farm to School Guide!

It  is loaded with valuable information for schools in Island, San Juan, Skagit, and Whatcom Counties that are making farm to school work. This guide is for parents, teachers, administrators, food service staff, school board members, and community organizations. Way to go Real Food Show!

RFS gets a bookie: Esther

Real Food Show has a new member... our booking agent, Esther!

And we are off to a meeting to get her started. Yay!

Real Food Show at Camano Farmers Market

The Real Food show at a Farmers Market... in the sun and the wind... well done Beans and Frank!

Real Food Show in Herald

Frank & Beans 

Food Co-op's comedy show teaches about healthy food 

- and children lap it up.
By: Kie Relyea The Bellingham Herald

 

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/05/31/4320259_bellinghams-real-food-show-uses.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

In the gym at Bellinghams Parkview Elementary School, children giggle as "Frank" tries to corral "Beans," who's zipping around him every which way after eating sugary foods for breakfast. Clowning aside, the students are there Wednesday, May 27, for a serious lesson about eating healthy and being active in a 35-minute presentation titled "The Real Food Show," which was produced and developed by the Community Food Co-op in Bellingham.

This lesson comes with bad jokes that the students love, juggling - from eggs to bowling balls - singing, goofiness, unicycle riding, slapstick, balancing acts, and even time and space travel. All courtesy of Frank and Beans, the characters played by Jason Quick and Della Plaster of the Bellingham Circus Guild.

Using humor, the duo teach the kids about reading labels to find out what's actually in their food and the importance of eating a balanced diet of vegetables, fruits, grains and proteins. And that means avoiding some breakfast cereals and other things sugary. "Since pop is so full of sugar, what do we drink instead?" Plaster asked the students at one point. "Water!" they yelled in reply.

A total of 9,286 elementary school children in Whatcom and Skagit counties, as well as the city of Olympia, have seen the show since its start in 2014, thanks to the effort of Karl Meyer, outreach coordinator for the Community Food Co-op in Bellingham, who came up with the idea of teaching kids about food by making them laugh. "Learning while something fun is going on makes it easy to learn," Meyer said. "It's edutainment. I've seen the show so many times now I enjoy watching the kids. At that age they're such a sponge for knowledge and learning, and being in the moment with it."

In addition to Meyer, "The Real Food Show" was written and polished by Sam Williams, also known as "Smerdyakov" of Flying Karamazov Brothers fame, as well as Plaster and Quick. Schools haven't had to pay for the show since its pilot in 2014; the Bellingham food co-op has footed the bill for the presentations in Whatcom County. Local co-ops did the same in Skagit County and Olympia.

Meyer said he'd like to see that model repeat itself all over. "My goal for 'The Real Food Show' is to get the show in front of as many elementary school kids as possible," he said. "This show can be a catalyst for the children in our communities to embrace the importance of real food and a healthy lifestyle in a fun, entertaining and impactful way." The youngsters continue their education, and possibly their family's, when they leave. Each child is sent home with a place mat on which nutritional information, games and jokes are printed.

The show is part of the Bellingham co-op's commitment to educating the community, according to Meyer. "We do things for adults in the community," he said, referring in part to the co-op's cooking and health classes. He added: "It's so crazy right now with the media messages the kids are getting. I felt like kids need to see how real food is so important." Wednesday's show at Parkview dovetailed with other programs that have been teaching students about food and being healthy, including growhappykids.org from WSU Extension Food $ense and Whatcom Farm-to-School, which helps schools introduce fresh, healthy and local foods into meals and snacks.

Mardi Solomon, co-coordinator for the Whatcom Farm-to-School support team, is a fan of "The Real Food Show." "They're all the kinds of messages we want kids to get about healthy eating, but they're delivered in such a fun way," Solomon said. "I think 'The Real Food Show' grabs a lot of kids because of how the message is delivered." She sees it as another way of reaching children. Some learn about healthy eating through presentations in classrooms, others through the school garden or by eating local foods, and still others by watching Frank and Beans play, Solomon explained. She praised the co-op for producing and sponsoring the show. "We're united in our efforts to try to promote healthy eating in the community," Solomon said.

Melinda Ashbaugh, a Food $ense educator who saw the show for the first time Wednesday, praised it for being engaging. "They did a great job," Ashbaugh said. "It's important information and especially important at a young age. It's so much to easier to develop healthy habits than to change unhealthy habits. Getting that information when they're younger is pivotal."

The article, along with short video can be seen on the Herald website here ...

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/05/31/4320259_bellinghams-real-food-show-uses.html?rh=1

The Real Food Show

It seems like the project was a success. The Real Food show performed for 10 elementary schools in Bellingham, thanks to the idea and sponsorship of the Bellingham Food Coop. Here we are at the annual Food Coop meeting, showing a snippit of the show... where we stack up the proteins, and Frank balances them on his face, just long enough for Beans to get excited and congratulate him with a vigorous pat on the back.

 Here we are at Boundary Bay during a food-sense program.

 I love that the kids were front and center!!! And then off center for this trick under the tent.

 The team (plus Amber... who'se definitely been part of the team)!

 Beans, energetically talking about real food.

 Beans is a real-food cheer-leader... without actually being a cheer-leader!

Here we are during our first dress-rehearsal. Juggling different sized and shaped things are obviously still a new skill I will eventually hone.

The kids go crazy for this part.

 Frank and Beans, from our promo photo-shoot.

 I've had a great time performing this show, and feel a huge love for it. I'm so happy that the Coop and the schools also appreciate this show and want us back next year!!!

Food Show Review

We have put The Real Food Show in front of a feedback audience, Vaudevillingham, and then a preview show audience. It has been so helpful to have eyes and feedback for the show. We were fortunate enough to have our great friend, writer, and circus-enthusiast, Adam in the audience. He submitted this praise to the Coop, which published it in its monthly newsletter.

Wow! What a great thing the Co-op is
doing in sponsoring The Real Food Show!
I had the good fortune of seeing
the show a couple weekends ago when
Della and Jason Quick gathered people
together at The Bellingham Circus
Guild for a preview performance. What
HUGE fun. I have not laughed so hard
in a long time. It was great to sit with an
intergenerational audience being wowed
by skilled local performers unpacking
an important issue—the importance of
real food in our everyday lives. What
I really respect about this event is that
the performers, Della Plaster and Jason
Quick, combine their wide array of
circus skills with a sincere commitment
to make the best show possible.
I believe that the best forms of
community-engaged art are the ones that
are committed to exploring serious issues
and offering up the most entertaining and
dramatically compelling art possible. The
Real Food Show does just that. You picked
the right clowns for this assignment.
It was clear that people in the audience
were eating up the warmth and ease with
which Della and Jason welcomed kids
and seniors and everyone in-between
to participate in the ebbs and flows of
the performance. The circus elements,
the humor, the images, the audience
participation elements all came together
in one big, smile-inducing way. In
the process, Della and Jason conveyed
an amazing amount of important
information. This show may be designed
for youth, but I know that I’ve been
reading food labels with increased
frequency, avoiding sugar (with a better
success rate), drinking more water, and
eating more fruits and veggies since seeing
The Real Food Show a few weeks ago—
and I am 47 years old.
Another positive wrinkle to this
performance is that Della and Jason
are kind people, reliable people,
generous people. It is not every day
that you can find two emotionally
mature clowns to serve as community
ambassadors.
Please extend my thanks and
appreciation to all those on the board
and on the staff involved in choosing
to commission the creation of this
timely event, and for underwriting The
Real Food Show’s 10-school tour this
spring.
The Real Food Show made me laugh,
it changed my food habits (for the better),
and it made me super proud to be a
member of the Community Food Co-op.
Thanks to all concerned. A collaboration
between public schools, a food co-op,
a local circus guild, and two clowns is
just the kind of local event that makes
Bellingham such a great place to live.
Appreciation and respect to all involved.
Cheers,
Adam Ward, Bellingham
Community Food Co-op member-owner

http://www.communityfood.coop/coop/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/WEB-May14-NL.pdf

Thanks Adam, for such an outstandingly rave review!