Students in the Culinary Club at Circle City Prep (CCP) have been getting ready for a Black History Month bake sale that doubles as a lesson in running a small business. The event is being organized with The Patachou Foundation and is scheduled for Feb. 29.
The sale is meant to give students a chance to put their cooking skills to work while learning about entrepreneurship and strengthening their community from within. Money raised will go to the Culinary Club itself.
Shannon Mitchell, culinary director of The Patachou Foundation, worked with the club to shape the idea and format of the event. It draws on the story of Georgia Gilmore, a cook and activist from Montgomery, Alabama, who used her cooking to help fund and feed activists in the Montgomery bus boycott.
"How have we employed our talents to help ourselves, to help our communities? Let's focus on the legacy of entrepreneurship," Mitchell said. She added that the focus should also be on the legacy of self-reliance and determination.
Julia Turshen, author of the cookbook "Feed the Resistance," described Gilmore's importance in a 2017 New York Times article. "You don't hear Miss Gilmore's name as often as Rosa Parks, but her actions were just as critical," Turshen said. "She literally fed the movement. She sustained it."
Mitchell said the project grew more exciting as it took shape. The goal, she explained, was not just to cook something but to build a business that would fund the club and ensure it has the money to continue through the rest of the school year, with students doing the work themselves.
CCP is one of several area schools that The Patachou Foundation partners with, tailoring its help to each school's needs. The foundation teaches children about healthy eating and helps schools serve healthy meals. Much of the food typically served to students arrives prepackaged and is prepared in kitchens rather than made from scratch, and the foundation works with schools to offer fresh, healthy options as part of its effort to address food insecurity and hunger.
Mitchell pointed to the scale of the problem. One in five children in Indianapolis experiences food insecurity, she said, and 50% of the calories children eat are consumed during school. "I can say hunger relief can be addressed best through the school because that's where they're getting all their calories. We want to make sure that those calories count," she said.
Students also met David Bell, a Warren Central High School alumnus and NFL player, who read them a children's book about Gilmore's story. Bell worked with Mitchell and other chefs to plan the sale, including deciding what would be served and how much each baked good would cost.
The bake sale will take place during Circle City Prep's Black History program, which will also include a series of performances.
