Food is more than what’s on the plate. This is Equal Portions, a series by editor-at-large Shane Mitchell, investigating bigger issues and activism in the food world, and how a few good eggs are working to make it better for everyone.
“I’m not much of a cabbage person, but this is good,” said Adeline “Addy” Tucker, age 16, balancing a full plate on her lap as other members of Change the World Kids, a nonprofit based in Woodstock, Vermont, helped themselves to leftovers after dinner service on a recent Tuesday night. “I had no idea it could be so creamy.” She ate another forkful and grinned. A junior at Woodstock Union High School, Tucker regularly volunteers to prep and serve a meal once a week in this picturesque village in the Green Mountains. Cold weather can linger longer here than other parts of northernmost New England, so the organization’s Anti Cabin Fever Dinner series is a popular way to enjoy a hot meal and share a table with neighbors until summer arrives. And once the season ends, the kids shift to tending a large “food justice” vegetable garden that supplies fresh produce to the Woodstock Community Food Shelf. Throughout the year, they also volunteer for everyday jobs like stacking firewood for seniors, installing clotheslines, and delivering groceries.
“We have people who have been coming to these dinners for 20 years,” said Rachel Apple, the program’s facilitator. Late in the afternoon before the students showed up, she turned on the lights and folded a pile of cloth napkins in the Thompson Senior Center dining room, where a full house was expected. “And when the series started, it was a twofold thing: to bring people together, and to provide a low-cost meal in a community setting.” Apple added that if someone couldn’t afford the $15 donation, they were welcome to pay whatever they could spare.
Woodstock appears idyllic. The village square is surrounded by heritage-grade houses, an independent bookshop, and a quaint general store with a display wall of small-batch maple syrup from local producers. A foundation created by members of the Rockefeller family supports multiple community and conservation initiatives. However, like in many other seasonal resort towns—Nantucket, Aspen, Southampton, Palm Springs—wealth inequity remains a socially divisive issue for full-time residents struggling with food insecurity and a lack of affordable housing. Not everyone can afford the gourmet grocery stores catering to the weekend crowd. The nearest supermarkets are almost 15 miles from the town center, traveling Route 4 East across the New Hampshire border to West Lebanon, about a 30-minute drive one way. And that’s in good weather.
Apple explained that restaurants in the Woodstock area regularly volunteer to participate in the dinner series. “And then if we don’t have a chef lined up, we just cook the meal ourselves.” Recently, the kids prepared pesto lasagna, a salad, and lemon bars. The nonprofit even has a bonafide root cellar where their garden produce winters over—it’s built into the side of a hill behind the Woodstock Elementary School parking lot. “Onions, carrots. We had so many sweet potatoes!” Apple said. “There was an abundance of apples because the kids picked them at some of the orchards, so we had apple crisp almost every meal for a while.”
Change the World Kids currently has between 15 to 20 members. The regular group is enrolled in grades 7 through 12, but there’s an enthusiastic preteen rising group as well. The youngest volunteer is Apple’s 7-year-old son Elliot. He can become an official Change the World Kid when he turns eight later this year; until then, Apple explained that he liked hanging out with the teenagers and helping his mom. He said: “Working in the [food justice] garden is my favorite job, and I liked making the bean teepee.” Like other initiatives that focus on child empowerment programs—Developing K.I.D.S. in Detroit, Common Kids in Chicago, Kids Helping Kids in San Diego—evidence shows that creating awareness at an early age can lead to long-term compassionate volunteering, whether in urban or rural communities.
An hour before service, students peeled off their coats and set the tables. Others tied on aprons and clustered in the kitchen, where Woodstock Inn & Resort sous chef Jenna D’Amato unpacked hotboxes holding large aluminum trays of dinner rolls, maple-glazed carrots, corned beef short ribs, and the saffron cabbage Addy Tucker relished. “We prepped everything at the inn and kept it nice and hot for the meal,” D’Amato said. “Then we guide the kids through the plate-up. I’ll usually do the first one so they can see an example, and then they do the rest.” Executive chef Matthew McClure arrived next and assigned more tasks: dishwashing, pouring glasses of water for early guests, organizing plating and serving stations. McClure has two daughters in the Woodstock school system, so he also produces the menu for the nonprofit’s annual Para La Tierra fundraiser gala.
His oldest, Helen, a fifth grader, spent early childhood around restaurants, and when the family moved to Woodstock, she was a natural to help with the nonprofit’s meal program. Waiting for plating to begin in the kitchen, she said: “I’ve really enjoyed being a part of the Change the World Kids team, especially when we do these community dinners. It’s shown me what a great group of kids can do when we work together. It has helped me believe that someday I can make the world a better place.”
As the teenagers plated food with tongs and spoons, the youngest members, wearing white button-down shirts, worked as runners, carrying dishes from the kitchen to tables where guests had gathered, then removing the empty plates as each course progressed from salad to dessert. One student volunteer, high school senior Joaquin Jones-Welker, age 18, has worked part time as a line cook at the inn on weekends, and helped expedite for McClure and D’Amato that evening.
Growing up in rural towns can create a tight-knit dynamic among children, because the kids who attend elementary school together may remain classmates until their senior prom. But learning to interact with neighbors helps foster empathy for those from different cultures or orientations, and credit for hours of voluntary community service looks excellent on a college application. Some of the Change the World Kids are interested in majoring in environmental sciences; the organization also has reforestation projects in both Vermont and Costa Rica. Proceeds from the dinners are put aside for an annual planting trip to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve.
Two alumni of the program, Owen Spann and Silas Bohen, sat together at one of the tables. They now work in forestry jobs and acknowledged that the Costa Rica trips made a huge impact on their career paths. Spann nodded in agreement as Bohen, a pathologist focused on woodland disease management, explained their early commitment to Change the World Kids: “He and I used to dishwash for these dinners back in sixth grade. When you’re that age, you’re very self-oriented, but as you get older and develop awareness, this gives you the opportunity to be more focused on the community and service to people.”
As guests departed and the last dishes were wiped clean, the kids clustered in the kitchen for their own impromptu “family meal.” A second helping of cabbage for Tucker, leftovers to take home, an extra batch of cupcakes—triple chocolate with buttercream icing—saved by D’Amato as a surprise. For some, this would be their last dinner before graduating and venturing out into the wider world. But this far north, winter comes soon enough. The rest of the kids will be ready to serve again.
