I truly enjoyed my visit to Washington D.C. and was proud to know many of the efforts going on to improve our Nation and the community of Washington DC. Visiting the US Capitol was an amazing experience especially getting to see all the wonderful statues of our great leaders. One near and dear to my heart is Norman Borlaug!
If you don’t know who he is then you should! As a crop scientist, he worked to end world hunger through science and created the Green Revolution! As a college student, I was fortunate enough to meet him prior to his death! Truly an amazing man! He is also the only agriculturists that I know of that has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Some of my favorite quotes from Dr. Borlaug include:
“Almost certainly, however, the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.”
“Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply.”
I believe Dr. Borlaug would have approved of the efforts of the DC Kitchen! I had never heard of DC Kitchen prior to my visit and I just have to say it was an amazing experience! I am glad to know there is such an amazing organization! DC Kitchen provides culinary training for low income people in DC working to help them start careers. They also provide jobs by being a caterer for the region and soon opening their own cafe. Also, they cook about 2000 meals a day for homeless and low income residents. They reclaim food that isn’t perfect like ends of chicken not used by restaurants and mis-packaging food or bruised fruit/vegetables to make these meals! They have an awesome volunteer system getting the community involved! One of the truly striking things about DC Kitchen is that they believe in delivering quality food to those who need it and giving people dignity. In the picture below you can see their motto of “As you would cook for your own family.” They truly work to make a difference in people’s lives!
Agriculture today is struggling and to be honest I think my last Dr. Borlaug quote explains a lot of why agriculture is struggling.
“Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.”
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