STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Dozens of youth and adults gathered at the West Brighton Community Center for the Youth Got Served pop-up event, where they enjoyed a nutritious meal, explored health-conscious cooking, and engaged in group discussions about their personal health journeys.

“Health is wealth. We may have been conditioned to go by things one way, but once we come to understand a new way and how we should be on top of our health, it’s better to give that information out to our peers as well. We are powerful together,” Tanayah Thomas, 23, one of the event coordinators, said.

Chef Sandra Mathis of Grace Kelli Cupcakes and Clarissa Simmons, the owner of Liquid Vibes Juice Co., hosted workshops emphasizing the significance of natural foods, obtaining essential nutrients and vitamins, and harnessing the power of food as medicine.

“I feel like we wait until it’s too late. When you are older… putting on weight and you go to the doctor and they give you a diagnosis, you start to wonder ‘how did this happen’? It’s really in the food and making better choices. The body is so incredible and it heals itself, so I wanted to spread this information to the youth because it starts young,” Simmons, who taught attendees how to add more plant-based meals into your diet, said.

Community members received a youth-created cookbook, nutritious groceries, and valuable insights into health-conscious cooking. They also had the opportunity to win air fryers through raffles.

“We need to learn about it. This is the food we put in our body. We need to know what’s harming us and what’s helping us. I feel like knowing the importance of what we should consume and shouldn’t is really important because if we don’t realize it until we get old, it’ll be too late,” Roshonda Livingstone, a mother who attended the event with her three children, said.

YOUTH GOT SERVED

The Youth Got Served pop-up event is a component of a broader initiative funded through the participatory budget of the Office of Neighborhood Safety. It was brought to life by the Youth Leadership Council, which united 65 youths from 30 NYCHA sites across the city, empowering them to influence public policy through their voices.

“The young people thought that health was the most important thing to discuss, especially coming out post-pandemic. They felt that it’s important for young people to not only be centered in shaping what public policy is, but actually creating this participatory budget where young people get to decide how to spend $65,000 and they chose to create this project on healthy eating,” Ranti Ogunleye, the initiatives manager at the Office Of Neighborhood Safety, said.

Throughout the Youth Leadership Council programming, the 65 young participants took the lead in identifying critical issues within their communities and conducted their own participatory budgeting process. Among the key issues they identified were food insecurity and food inequity in their neighborhoods.

To tackle this in their neighborhood, they initiated a four-part project designed to bridge the food insecurity and food inequity gap, which involved a youth-authored cookbook, instructional healthy cooking videos, informative pop-up events about nutritious foods, and food distribution efforts.

“We created a cookbook utilizing some of the ingredients that are passed out at food distribution sites. Not only did they identify recipes in this cookbook, but they also provided health and wellness tips, teaching young people the connection of food and how it is related to how you feel and your overall health,” Cristian Santos, program manager with Youth Leadership Council, said.

“We want to teach them that there is an alternative. They don’t have to rely on these things just because they are quick and easy,” Santos said. “We want them to know that these foods are accessible to them and once they have it, we want them to know how to turn the produce into a meal that can sustain them and families.”