Early Childhood program gives 17 families ‘all the tools we need’ for meaningful family dinners

QUINCY — An old proverb says, “Give a man a fish, and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime.”

There isn’t a phrase that says what happens when families are given a Crock-Pot, fed dinner once a week, sent home with three nights’ worth of dinners for several weeks in a row and taught how to shop for groceries economically, prepare meals efficiently and engage with one another authentically — but the prospects are looking pretty good.

The second year of the Early Childhood & Family Center’s (ECFC) Family Connection Café came to a close Tuesday night, and 17 families were sent home with congratulatory $50 Aldi’s gift cards to accompany the brand new Crock-Pots they received during the first week. 

“I don’t make much money at all. We’re struggling,” said Morgan Black, one of the participants. “(The Aldi’s gift card is) going to mean meat. It’s going to mean eggs and milk, because eggs are so expensive right now.”

The four-week program was made possible by a $6,000 grant from the Tracy Family Foundation, featured culinary instruction from Lori Brenner of Dinner Is In the Bag and was facilitated by several ECFC staff members.

“This group has just been really cool from the beginning,” Lori Gengenbacher, a family support specialist at ECFC, said of the participants. “We so appreciate Lori from Dinner Is In the Bag and the Tracy Foundation for realizing the importance of family and dinner time. Making mealtime important again is really cool, and it’s something that, if you don’t take the time and effort to do it, it’s not going to happen.”

Gengenbacher said participants actively engaged with one another and with instructors, asking questions and enthusiastically sharing recipes with one another each week. They also shared tips and tricks for how to defeat one of parenthood’s greatest mealtime enemies: getting the kids to eat their vegetables.

Participant Monica Fusco said she and her family have been experimenting with foods they wouldn’t have tried if not for the program. 

“I’ll cook it, it’s smelling good, (I think,) ‘Maybe I’ll try it,’” she said. “It’s actually changed the attitude in the house as far as dinner … My husband calls me Martha Stewart.”

The nutritional part of the program was only half of it.

Families learned new economically-friendly culinary skills, connection-building skills and conversational games each week, such as:

• The benefits of eating as a family and of weekly meal prep
• High, Low, Buffalo, I Spy and Would You Rather
• WIC-friendly recipes 
• Nutrition 

Birdie Walker is raising three grandchildren under the age of 10 as her own. Since she works from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., the Crock-Pot meals have made a huge difference in her home. She’s now providing home cooked meals for herself, the three kids and her parents, who often join for dinner.

“Now we all sit down, turn the electronics off and eat together,” Walker said. “They’re doing wonderful because everybody’s talking to each other.”

The newfound intentionality of meal times has impacted the way Black’s son thinks about things happening throughout his day, though he’s only 4-years-old.

“My son now is like, ‘If I find something that I did that day that I love, I keep it in my heart and then I bring it home to share to you,’” she said. “That’s gotten me.”

The program has made budgets stretch farther, children more introspective and eaters more adventurous, but there’s another impact that goes a long way: an increase in parental confidence.

“I’m able to feed the family,” Fusco said. “They’re loving it, and them loving it makes me feel good.”

The program’s second year took place within a very different sociopolitical climate than that of its first year. Now, philanthropic organizations are becoming inundated with funding requests to make up for the sweeping cuts to federal spending — making grants more competitive now than ever before.

When asked what she would say to anyone who claimed programs like the Family Connection Café were not important enough to continue funding, Black didn’t hesitate.

“This program helped fuel (17) families… They gave us all the tools that we needed to succeed,” Black said. “These programs are helping kids. They really are, and they’re giving parents the self confidence that they need.”

Disclaimer: Muddy River News learned of the ECFC Family Connection Café program through Lori Gengenbacher, the author’s aunt. This relation was determined not to be a conflict of interest in reporting on the program and is being disclosed for transparency purposes.