95: Emerge Food Van for Disengaged Kids with Jen Shaw

Today we feel very lucky to have Jen Shaw on the show, who is the founder of Emerge, an incredible social impact project. Emerge is a mobile food van, that employs disengaged children. Teaching them to cook, clean and serve customers, along with learning many other life skills. These children face incredible hardship in their lives, but with the help of the food van, they are given hope and much needed skills to set them up for the future.

Holistic focus and sustainable funding streams

Jen loves helping those in her program to discover how incredible real food can be, and how it can help with overall health and wellbeing, particularly their mental health. She teaches the importance of cooking a meal from scratch, while blending a holistic approach, including the elements of food, physical fitness, goal setting and self-esteem.

Empowering kids to make their own empowering choices on eating  

Jen shows these kids how to make a basic fried rice, bolognaise with plenty of veggies, simple salads and why it is easier to batch make meals. The bottom line is, some of the best things these kids can learm is a simple approach to food, and meals that make you feel good mentally and emotionally. It’s all about exposure to this way of life, and building their knowledge base to healthy eating. Jen focuses on replicating a loving family and home environment.

These kids have survived the worst of the worst and are still standing at the end of the day. Their resilience is simply mind-boggling, as they are truly survivors with so many skills to cope (even without degrees under their belt). They are full of incredible ideas about the future and show great promise in fulfilling their dreams.

If you can support this in any way, please head to the links below and make a donation to this wonderful cause. 

Links

Website: http://emergecafe.com.au/
Facebook: Emerge Toowoomba
Official Crowd Funding page: https://chuffed.org/project/emerge-for-toowoomba-youth