We have wonderful, happy news to share with all of you!!

One of the students from the Emeril Lagasse Full Circle Kitchen, Donnell, was just hired by Emeril's Coastal Italian!! 

Donnell has been taking cooking classes with Food For Thought in the Full Circle Kitchen since he was a junior in high school and has had a passion for learning how to improve his culinary skills. We are so proud of Donnell for pursuing his dreams to work in the kitchen of a restaurant.

This makes our hearts burst to know that all those involved with Food For Thought are making an impact on kid's lives who are involved in the FFT programs.

Below photos:
Donnell cooking at the Chi Chi Miguel Throwdown (April 2019) and helping with renovations at the DeFuniak Springs Pantry

Thank you also to the Emeril Lagasse Foundation that supports and helps kids to make their dreams a reality.

As of July 1st, the Whole Foods Market in Destin, FL, will be donating every dime that is received when customers use a reusable shopping bag for their groceries and select to donate the dime. 

The "Donate Your Dime" program will benefit Food For Thought Outreach for three months, July 1st through September 30th, 2019.  When shoppers bring a reusable bag instead of using a new shopping bag from Whole Foods, they receive $0.10 off for every bag, and in return, this ten cents can be selected to be donated to Food For Thought Outreach during the above time period.

We are thankful to be able to receive these added donations over the next three months from Whole Foods! Remember to bring your own bag(s) the next time you go shopping at Whole Foods; better for the environment and it will be a help to Food For Thought!

We are very grateful for Hunter Davis and his personal chef business, The Dish and the Spoon!

Over the last six months, Hunter has raised enough money to feed 53 families in the summer program! With The Dish & The Spoon, for every meal that he prepares, he matches the amount to donate a weeks worth of food to Food For Thought for the summer program.  

Hunter has been using his business to donate to Food For Thought for over a year now.  After his wife began to volunteer in the back pack program, he wanted to also be involved, so he began the "1 For 1" program at The Dish and The Spoon; one meal purchased for one week of summer meals. In addition to donating to Food For Thought, Hunter has also been involved with leading and helping in the Full Circle Kitchen cooking classes.

The Dish and Spoon has been in business since 2012 and specializes in catering in-home meals to families that are vacationing along 30A.  

Our Emeril Lagasse Full Circle Kitchen continues to be busy with classes for kids, even with school out of session.  Each week we have had various organizations with students and kids join us for a cooking class.

We had such a good time hosting the Youth Village Cooking class earlier this month while they learned how to make pizza's from scratch.  It is so great to see the kids take part and want to learn more about cooking on their own!

We also have enjoyed hosting students from AMI Pensacola, while they made an easy "one-pot" ranch chicken meal, and love that they make the effort to drive the distance to join our cooking class.

The Boys and Girl's Club has also been using our kitchen as part of their summer program.  Recently that created "Cheerio Clusters" and made eggs for a breakfast meal.

We are so thankful for this kitchen that allows us to host kids of all ages to teach them how to cook an array of meals all on their own!