Project Progress 1

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Weekly Objectives

This past week a few of our group members (from the LFS 350 course taught at UBC) visited Lord Strathcona Elementary School and community centre in Downtown Eastside Vancouver to observe a breakfast program in action.  This was a big moment of significance in our group that we will discuss below.  Before we get into that story, however, we want to explain what we have accomplished so far in addition to discussing our goals for the future of this project.

Note: We will refer to the Breakfast Club of Canada as the BCC throughout this blog.

 

WEEK 1 (Sept. 23rd-30th):

Objectives:

  • Meet with Robin
  • Learn more about the BCC
  • Brainstorm goals and the aim of the project

Achievements:

  • We discussed personal and common goals of our group 
  • With Robin, we solidified our goals and aim of the project
  • Developed a rough draft of our vision and plan for the project

WEEK 2 (Sept. 30th-Oct. 7th):

Objectives:

  • Finalize and refine our goals
  • Review sample meal plans provided from Robin
  • Work on some points that Robin wanted us to address, such as strengths and weaknesses of pre-existing recipes as well as how we will address these issues and make improvements. 

Achievements:

  • Created more specific goals
  • Identified strengths and weaknesses of the previous meal plans, and developed strategies on how to address these issues in our own recipes 
  • Sent Robin detailed answers to all of his inquiries and received feedback

WEEK 3 (Oct. 7th- 14th):

Objectives:

  • Communicate with Robin to set-up a visit to one of the schools affiliated with the BCC
  • Propose and introduce the BCC and our project outline to the class
  • Create proposal report and send it to the teaching staff and Robin

Achievements:

  • After receiving feedback from Will and Robin, we collectively decided to cut down our list of 20  food items to 10. 20 food items would be too much for us to research cost and incorporate into most our recipes. 
  • We developed a better vision for our project after completing the proposal report and presentation.

WEEK 4 (Oct. 14th-21st):

Objectives:

  • Start researching recipes and develop a list of 10 essential breakfast food items that are nutritious and fit into at least three of the four food groups from Canada’s Food Guide
  • Visit Lord Strathcona Elementary School to observe a breakfast program in action and talk to volunteers and community members involved in the breakfast program. 
  • Individually, brainstorm approximately 5 recipe ideas that include items from our essential food list. 

Achievements:

  • We created our list of 10 essential food items and sent them to Robin. 
  • We visited Lord Strathcona Elementary School and observed their breakfast program and talked with the people involved.
  • We began brainstorming recipe ideas.

Upcoming Objectives and How to Achieve them:

WEEK 5 (Oct. 21st-28th):

Objectives:

  • Determine bulk prices of our listed foods
  • Meet up with group and begin calculating prices and consult Robin with our price research

How to Achieve:

  • Contact grocery stores for bulk prices of listed foods
  • Utilize a formatted table to price out recipes
  • Send price list to Robin and receive feedback

WEEK 6 (Oct. 28th- Nov.4th)

Objectives:

  • Finalize recipe ideas

How to Achieve:

  • Compile individual brainstormed recipes and determine common themes

WEEK 7 (Nov. 4th- 11th)

Objectives:

  • Work on recipe formats
  • Consider adding in educational and themed components to our recipes

How to Achieve:

  • Brainstorm ideas individually
  • Come together as a group with our ideas and put them together
  • Send formatted recipes to Robin

WEEK 8 (Nov. 11th-18th)

Objectives:

  • Tie up any loose ends of the project, based on feedback from Robin
  • Start working on a feedback form

How to Achieve:

  • Reflect on our initial goals and aim of the project to make sure we accomplished everything we set out to do.
  • Come up with what we would like to get feedback on and put it into a document.

WEEK 9 (Nov. 18th- 25th)

Objectives:

  • Launch the recipes and have them available on the BCC website.

How to Achieve:

  • Send robin our finalized meal plans that are ready to be uploaded to the website.

Moment of Significance

What? 

          On Thursday October 15th, some of us went to Lord Strathcona Elementary School to observe a breakfast program. We had the opportunity to meet volunteers and organizers as well as the “breakfast buddies” who were two grade 6-7 students that helped run the breakfast program. It was great to see how involved families, siblings and students were and how they worked together to create such a positive atmosphere around healthy food and inclusion.  Even though the breakfast room was packed with families, the breakfast service ran very smoothly and efficiently, demonstrating the level of organization and care taken.

So What?

          Experiencing this first hand strengthened our understanding of the impact that this program has on the health, unity and empowerment within a community.  Through observation of the breakfast program, we gained a better understanding of what worked for them and what they want to see in a Breakfast program.

We also listened to three podcasts this week which shared a common theme on creating connections with the people in a community and listening to them and their needs (Sartin, 2014; Sibanda, 2014; Msimang, 2014).  With the breakfast program, we observed that the staff seemed to really listen to the needs of the community, which meant that children and their families enjoyed attending and eating breakfast with each other.  This demonstrated that the breakfast program does not just aim to feed hungry students, but they also aim to create and nurture connections within the community.

Now What? 

          Now that we have experienced a breakfast program first hand and seen the impact of it on the community, we are better equipped to create new recipe ideas for the BCC. We learned about the people who will have access to our recipes that we plan to create.

Through the proposal presentation from the week before, we also were able to get feedback and narrow our focus for our project to ensure that we would be able to create the best project possible in the limited time and with the resources available.  We also made plans to ensure we would go about our project in an ethical way; one part of this was in the way we contacted the grocery stores and collected data.

Overall it was a productive and significant week and we are encouraged by the visit to the school to see their breakfast program, and ready to move forward in this project!

References

Sartin, J. (Speaker). (2014, Dec. 10).  The Fish Bank [Audio podcast].

Retrieved from http://themoth.org

Sibanda, L.M. (Speaker). (2014, Dec. 10).  Grandma      Mahembe’s Farm [Audio podcast].

Retrieved from http://themoth.org

Msimang, S. (Speaker). (2014, Dec. 10).  A Pragmatic Idealist[Audio podcast].

Retrived from http://themoth.org