MaxLove Project and The Charlie Cart Project: culinary programs to children’s hospitals
MaxLove Project—an Orange County nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of child cancer patients, survivors and their families—recently raised $240,000 to launch an initiative in partnership with Northern California-based The Charlie Cart Project that will put a nutritional teaching kitchen in every children’s hospital in the country.
The partnership was unveiled Sept. 23 at Tanaka Farms in Irvine where MaxLove Project holds their annual Farm to Fork dinner.
The Charlie Cart is a mobile teaching kitchen equipped with a sink, oven, pantry storage, kitchen supplies and more. Each cart costs $9,500, as opposed to the enormous expense of constructing a kitchen at each children’s hospital nationwide.
“MaxLove Project has grown out of the idea that food can be medicine. When families face serious health conditions like pediatric cancer, they need to be empowered to take their children’s quality of life in their own hands,” MaxLove Project Co-Founder Audra Wilford, whose son Max is a brain cancer survivor, said. “By learning culinary skills and the nutrition science principles we call ‘Fierce Foods,’ parents and kids together can thrive against the odds.”
MaxLove Project is developing a curriculum where representatives and local chefs will educate doctors, nurses and the public on the healing potential of food as medicine. Locally, MaxLove Project has teamed up with Chefs Azmin Ghahreman of Sapphire Laguna, Zov Karamardian of Zov’s Bistro, Greg Daniels of Haven Gastropub, Michael Puglisi of Electric City Butcher and Cathy McKnight of Eilo to spearhead the movement.
The Charlie Cart Project founder Carolyn Federman has worked in food education for more than a decade. She led acclaimed Berkeley chef Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard Project, developed programming with the Jamie Oliver Foundation, co-founded the Berkeley Food Institute, and co-produced UC Berkeley's Edible Education course.
Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Tanaka Farms in Irvine both have their Charlie Carts currently; next MaxLove Project will roll one out at Phoenix Children’s Hospital in Arizona.
