Mission: Elijah’s Promise harnesses the power of food to break the cycle of poverty, alleviate hunger, and change lives. We fight to end hunger by serving good food for all at our community soup kitchen, providing education and jobs in the food industry through our Promise Culinary School, encouraging neighborhood agriculture at our community garden, offering social services to those in need, engaging in community advocacy and creating social enterprise food businesses that further social good.

Vision: We envision a community where no one goes hungry for lack of food or funds; where a good meal is a nutritious meal; where our community learns to steward natural and financial resources wisely; and where we make opportunity available to those who seek it. Food Changes Lives!

Our values shape who we are and what we do. If you asked what compels and guides us in our work, the following things would be at the core of our identity and mission: ending hunger, breaking the cycle of poverty, promoting healthy and sustainable food, empowering individuals through job training and opportunity, creating businesses that create social good, providing dignity and honor to those we serve, remembering the contributions of those who serve, and using our natural and financial resources wisely. We have several programs designed to serve youth, including Let’s Cook! For Kids, a healthy cooking class; a Family Feeding Program at the Community Soup Kitchen; and a Food Recovery partnership with the New Brunswick Public Schools that ensures more students can enjoy more food during school meals and after school.

New Brunswick Public Schools is a vibrant, diverse school district located in one of New Jersey’s most historic communities – a thriving college town that has been home to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, for over 250 years. New Brunswick’s population is over 56,000, and its school district enrolls close to 10,000 students from preschool through grade 12. Reflecting the multicultural nature of the community, approximately two-thirds of the students speak one of 23 languages other than English at home. Demographically, 91 percent of them are Hispanic; another 7 percent are African-American. The overarching vision for New Brunswick Public Schools is to Prepare, Empower and Inspire lifelong learners and leaders. We aim to ensure that our students become engaged in their own learning, their environment, and the world.

The FoodCorps service member at Elijah’s Promise will work with 2 New Brunswick Public Schools (McKinley Community School and Redshaw Elementary School) to lead curricularly-aligned hands-on lessons in classrooms and school gardens in collaboration with science and health teachers, conduct taste tests in classrooms and cafeterias that promote locally sourced produce and culturally relevant recipes, and promote a schoolwide culture of health by participating in family engagement activities and after-school events. McKinley has been designated the Environmental Science themed school in the district and already has multiple raised beds in addition to a large hoop house on the school’s property. Our service member will continue supporting and maintaining these spaces in partnership with school leadership at McKinley. Redshaw has a number of planter boxes and is in the process of building raised beds that will be ready for use by the next service term. One of the highlights of the year for our service members (and for their students and teachers!) is leading the schoolwide ‘March Snackness’ healthy snack competition, based off the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament but with snacks! Other activities will include leading occasional after school and weekly Saturday Let’s Cook! For Kids classes at Elijah’s Promise’s teaching kitchen, introducing and managing ‘Share Tables’ at our partner schools, and supporting our Food Recovery program in partnership with the New Brunswick Public Schools which ensures more students can enjoy more food during school meals and after school. Service members also have the opportunity to learn how to apply for competitive grants that will help fund their initiatives with support from Elijah’s Promise staff. For the 2022-2023 academic year, the FoodCorps service member will help Elijah’s Promise expand its Let’s Cook! Community cooking program by working with elementary-aged youth from the local schools district and community-at-large. Cooking classes will be scheduled around the availability of local families and youth so there may be night and weekend sessions.

Our FoodCorps service member is a part of the Elijah’s Promise family and an embedded member of our small but mighty staff. We look for members with a strong passion for food systems and urban agriculture work at a community level. As with any nonprofit the majority of our staff fill different roles and support different needs for the community we serve. The kind of people who thrive in our workplace environment are people with a strong sense of social justice, equity, self-direction, flexibility, good and positive communication skills, and ultimately an ability to multitask and juggle a variety of projects and efforts.

Our 1 FoodCorps service member at Elijah’s Promise is part of the New Jersey/New York cohort that includes 16 members with 7 sites across 8 communities in New Jersey and New York City. Don’t be fooled by what you may have heard from the haters: New Jersey is a state with a heaping spoonful of love, a dash of attitude, and a heavy sprinkle of everything nature has to offer: gorgeous beaches along the Atlantic Ocean (AKA ‘the shore’), hiking opportunities from the Appalachian Trail in the north to the Pine Barrens in the south, flourishing urban spaces with every kind of cuisine and art form known to planet earth, and rolling farmland stretching for as far as the eye can see. Situated between two major cities – New York and Philadelphia – New Jersey is aptly named the Garden State and home to nearly 10,000 urban and rural farms producing over 100 crops enjoyed nationwide! Connecting New Jersey kids to local agriculture reinforces our agricultural roots, economy, and unites communities with a shared vision of improving child health and wellbeing. Like New Jersey itself, our service sites reflect a broad diversity of culture and geography. Too many New Jersey residents experience health disparities as a result of decades of systemic racism, and service members mainly serve in communities with the highest rates of food insecurity. In partnership with our network of service sites, we strive to positively impact the ways New Jersey children experience food in school by using a variety of action-driven and scientifically-backed farm to school efforts including promoting local procurement and student voice and choice in cafeterias, leading hands-on lessons in classrooms and school gardens, and by supporting our community partners to foster the culture of health that’s right for them within each unique school building we serve across the state. Our full New Jersey/New York Cohort meets regularly throughout the year for state-based trainings with local leaders, growers and organizers to set our service members up for success for their 1-2 years of service. During the first month of service, members research and present on the place-based histories and current context of the communities we serve; are introduced to a wide variety of food justice and farm to school stakeholders at the state and local levels; practice active learning by planning and leading culturally relevant classroom lessons, garden activities and taste tests with their fellow service members before entering their schools; spend ample time cooking and sharing meals together, learning from each other, and building community as a cohort (AKA ‘cohort bonding’); and orienting themselves at their sites throughout August prior to the first day of school in September—all of which is necessary to serve our communities intentionally, respectfully and from a Community Assets Based Approach. Additionally, our service members participate in a wide variety of national, state, and site-based professional development and networking opportunities throughout the year that are necessary for our New Jersey/New York service members to advance in their chosen careers following their 1-2 years of service.