PB&J Fund Youth Outreach and Program Assistant Position

The Outreach Coordinator will be many /most kids’ first interaction with an adult at The PB &J Fund.  It is absolutely imperative that said person be charismatic, outgoing, friendly, and kind.  Have a true passion for the organizations goals, and for the children it serves.  They must not be afraid to roll up their sleeves and get to know the kids and families on a deeper level.  Outreach is twofold as far as its responsibilities include but not limited to:  1. Direct outreach and maintenance of relationships with both children and adults going through programming.  2. Indirect outreach through marketing and blog maintenance to attract and communicate with current and new families.  The other side of the position is program assistance.  This person will be assisting the PD & CE with daily programmatic operations.

Hours:  Full time schedule with varying work hours depending on the programming offered that day, week or semester:  potentially seeking a 10am -6 pm or 11am-7pm standard schedule

Qualifications:

• Searching for a candidate with a minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent credentials.
• At least 2 years of work experience  in networking & outreach with youth and families
• Prefer experience working with children  between the ages of 8-13 year old youth
• Desire to work with children on a daily basis
• Willingness of and openness to learning: nutrition and culinary skills for youth instruction.
• Initiative
• Basic computer skills with knowledge of social media outreach, blog and website up keep.

Duties:

Program and Outreach:  50% of position

Creative Cooking Program: 

• To lead multiple Explorer Curriculum off site at Boys and Girls Club, Walker, Buford and Westhaven.
• Coordinate all aspects of the Explorer classes including shopping lists, daily communication with partners and parents.
• Collect data and report weekly on participation and lesson/ recipe success.
  • Surveys
  • Student referral
  • Parent follow-up
  • Help all students who would like to continue with the program find a way to do so.
  • Ability to work with volunteers or partners

Primo Plato Program: 

• Deliver meal services to non-educational CYFS locations weekly
• Develop relationships in a supportive role to CYFS partner leads at the meal locations assigned
• Coordinate delivery of the program needs at the CYFS partner location weekly.

Market to Meal Program:

• Assist the Program Director in all aspects of success for Market to Meal Events.
• Attend all Market to Meal events from set up to clean up to help with managing volunteers, the Taste and Take Market and the nutrition activity.

Holiday Giving Program: 

• Assist Program Director in all aspects of success for our annual Holiday Giving  Event in the following areas, but not limited to:
  • Food Ordering/Delivery
  • Volunteer Coordination
  • Coordination with the partner schools
  • Pre-packing day and day of packing tasks

Operations :  50% of position

• Coordinate transportation or provide PB&J vehicle transportation for pick-up and drop-off of kids and or parents when necessary
• Coordination of pick-up by partners of prepared items. I.E. snacks, Boys and Girls club events, Primo Plato and assist in coordinating with said partner organizations scheduling for snack programming.
• Help the PB&J team with cleanliness and maintenance of the space.
• Monthly Responsibilities:
  • Assist in program data collection on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis
    • Data entry, report generating, and assisting program director in presenting data.
    • Inventory – Physical
    • Student Evaluation data

If interested in applying for this position, please send on or before Wednesday, May 15, 2013 your resume with a cover letter to the attention of Alicia Cost, PB&J Fund program director at  Alicia@pbandjfund.org

On Wednesday our friends at the Cherry Avenue Boys and Girls Club helped us make 300 baked apple spice packets/ make-at-home kits, on top of Chefs Court and Alicia having normally scheduled cooking classes whipping up spaghetti Bolognese, Thai Coconut and Vegetable Soup.

Thursday was Baked Apple cooking day, we worked with Ms. Champria at Boys and Girls Club and her amazing (21!) elementary school students to prepare baked apples for 300 to serve at The Buford Harvest Festival on Friday afternoon.

Friday was the week’s culmination at the Buford Harvest Festival and Soup Competition.

We are proud to report that Chef Courtenay’s City Schoolyard Garden at Buford Thursday afternoon’s class WON the People’s Choice Award for best soup!  It was EXCEPTIONAL.  Check out the recipe here for their Winter Sunset Soup (with Local Delicata, Butternut Squash and Sausage).  Another great event, well done everyone involved!!!

By the close of Tuesday night, we are up to 10 partners.

Last night, we partnered with Clark Elementary’s reading night to host a Market to Meal dinner.  Students read and took home Chato’s Kitchen, a creative story about mice sharing cheese quesadillas with their new neighbor…a rather sneaky cat.  So of course, we had Chef Patrick from Hamdingers prepare delicious quesadillas for all the kids, parents and teachers to enjoy.

Cheese quesadillas with pulled chicken, mixed greens and pinto beans.

A special thank you to our Level 2 Chef in Training friends across town at The Boys and Girls Club on Cherry Avenue, who with the help of Chef Courtenay and Chef Alicia prepared ALL OF THE SALSA for the event.  It was a hit!  Parents and kids loved it and all were so excited to take home the veggies and recipes to try it for themselves at home.  THANKS TEAM!

In our market and nutritional activity, we focused on fresh ingredients the kids were learning about through the federal Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Grant, and portion sizes.  We did so by having the kids enter a raffle and guess how many oranges it takes to fill one serving of orange juice.  Not to give away the answer…but like Chef and RD Alicia brilliantly said:  ”You wouldn’t eat 3 whole oranges in one sitting would you?  But it sure is easy to gulp down a glass of OJ!”  What a great visual.

Then we all guessed how many servings of grains different sized tortillas contained.  Place a guess…then flip for the answer.  Some contain 4 whole servings!

Also a big thank you to the Charlottesville High School Key Club for providing awesome volunteers and The Local Food Hub and Whole Foods for making it possible to provide great products to families in our free Taste and Take Markets.

This week– is what I’ve named: the ultimate partner week.

Monday (yesterday) kicked off the week with: Alicia teaching her Walker Upper Elementary class and Chef Courtenay leading our monthly Big Brothers Big Sisters Class.  This week, was especially special though because Light House is working with us and BBBS to create a cooking-show style video on our Brazillian Black Bean Stew with whole wheat corn bread and salad dressed with cumin orange vinaigrette!  AND, as if it doesn’t get better…the awesome folks at the Charlottesville Cooking School let us use their amazing space to do so.

Chef Courtenay and the Wednesday Class at Boys and Girls Club!

And a recipe from this week sure to do the same: Broccoli, Bacon, and Corn Soup

All classes were working on knife skills and varying dices with lots of vegetables which were then used for soup, paninis and tzatziki dip accompaniment.  Check out our pictures from Walker Elementary and Boys and Girls Club on Cherry below.  And be sure to make this delicious soup at home!

An impromptu LOVED vinaigrette lesson

Free samples for the Club!

Thanks so much to the Rachael Ray and Yum-o Team!!!!!!  We are very honored!!!!!

Check it out here:

http://www.yum-o.org/how_cool.php?id=120

There was undoubtedly an underlying feeling of gratitude in the kitchen this morning as Chef Alicia posed the simple question of “What do we say again when we open the oven?” and one of our students yelled “THANK YOU!”.  Which resulted in fits of laughter and silly corrections.

But PB &J is who should be thankful!  To our shining students,  partner at Boys and Girls Club on Cherry, to The City Schoolyard Garden at Buford for the beautiful produce, to our friends Kaitlyn, Anna and Shawna who helped us out in the kitchen.  And most importantly to Chefs Courtenay and Alicia who week in and week out helped navigate us through the kitchen with fun and nutritious lessons.They are all exceptional indeed.

Our survey results this morning showed:

100% of students who “loved” the class;

100% who would take a PB &J class again;

100% of students who knew the proper way to handle a knife safely around the kitchen and at the cutting board.

And for extra credit…5 of the 6 students who had never tried Kale would try it again.  Not too bad.

Can’t wait to hear what our afternoon class has to say…something tells me it will be more of the same.

Getting caught tasting the cheese!

Gorgeous and tasty peppers and basil from the Buford Garden

Busy taking our end of class surveys...

Easy "naan" pizza...not a bad way to end the summer.

We had an awesome time creating our Tzatziki sauce, smelling new spices, sauteing our vegetables, grilling our chicken and assembling our new favorite sandwich or Shawarma…which we learned does not just refer to the meat preparation, but also is a word for sandwich.

Check out our pictures below, and be sure to try the recipes out, both found here.

These guys told us there are "no smiles when you're THIS serious about chicken"...but apparently we changed our mind.