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FreshDirect Donates Food To Assist the City's 'Fun Food, Smart Food' Program

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 09:00 CST

12-week cooking and nutrition program designed to teach kids how to cook, make healthier food choices

LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y., Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- FreshDirect, one of the nation's leading online gourmet food purveyors and delivery services, is proud to contribute to "Fun Food, Smart Food," a 12-week cooking and nutrition program for middle school-age youth (grades 5-8), which launches this month. The program empowers young people to learn new cooking skills, develop a passion for cooking and, ultimately, make healthier food choices.

The series of two-hour classes, held at after-school sites in Brooklyn and Harlem, include hands-on cooking and interactive nutrition dialogues. Field trips to local greenmarkets and farms reinforce classroom lessons and the program ends with a final event in which students share their new skills and knowledge with their families or peers at the program site. The train-the-trainer model will help sustain this program in future years.

Fun Food, Smart Food is made possible, in part, by a contribution from Jessica Seinfeld to the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, a 501C(3) organization dedicated to creating partnerships between the City and the private sector in an effort to strengthen public programs. Jessica Seinfeld is the Chair and Founder of Baby Buggy and author of Deceptively Delicious, which presents creative, healthy recipes for kids. Along with FreshDirect, Baby Buggy is providing take-home groceries for participating students so they can prepare the meals at home for their friends and family. The Children's Aid Society, which serves New York's disadvantaged children and families, is implementing Fun Food, Smart Food, based on its successful Go!Healthy initiative, which teaches young people of all ages how to cook and enjoy healthful foods.

"FreshDirect is honored to be part of Fun Food, Smart Food to help educate New York City youth on healthy eating habits for an active lifestyle," said Steve Druckman, Chief Marketing Officer of FreshDirect. "We feel it is our responsibility to give back to the community and are excited to make this possible with the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City and Ms. Seinfeld."

Fun Food, Smart Food is a collaboration of the Department of Youth and Community Development and the Children's Aid Society, in partnership with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Department of Parks & Recreation, and Office of the Food Policy Coordinator. The program is scheduled to expand in fall 2009 to the South Bronx and Jamaica.

About FreshDirect

Founded in 1999, FreshDirect is one of the nation's leading online meals and fresh food manufacturing and delivery services. FreshDirect is setting a new standard for fresh food production and distribution by offering unparalleled quality, product customization, and value pricing from its state-of-the-art kitchen and facility in Long Island City. The company is expanding rapidly and currently serves most of Manhattan and locations in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx, as well as parts of New Jersey, Westchester, and Nassau County. The company's vision is to change consumers' lives by providing the ultimate shopping experience for impossibly fresh food and meal solutions. The company currently has over 250,000 customers and has fulfilled over seven million orders since opening for business in September 2002. Additional information can be found at www.freshdirect.com.

About Baby Buggy

Founded in 2001 by Jessica Seinfeld, Baby Buggy is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to providing essential items to families in need throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Working through a network of 70 community based organizations, Baby Buggy has donated over 3.1 million items--including cribs, highchairs, coats, and strollers--to some of New York's most vulnerable families. In 2008, Baby Buggy launched a new initiative to help bring another essential, healthy and nutritious food, to some of its families. For more information, visit www.babybuggy.org.

About The Children's Aid Society

The Children's Aid Society was founded in 1853. It is one of the nation's largest and most innovative non-sectarian agencies, serving 150,000 of New York's neediest children and their families with a network of services that includes community schools, neighborhood centers, camps, adoption and foster care services, teen pregnancy prevention, education, health and recreation. The Children's Aid Society is a founding member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and the vast majority of Children's Aid's sites are Boys & Girls Clubs. For more information, please call 212-949-4938 or visit www.childrensaidsociety.org.

SOURCE FreshDirect

Source: PR Newswire

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