My Friends House, an ELCA-affiliated public benefit corporation founded by Ascension, Los Angeles in 1995, focuses on hunger prevention and healthy living in an inner-city environment.
Their innovative Creative Chefs program, held Thursdays from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m, uses local chefs to promote healthy eating and cooking with the goal of improving the health of the community. Chefs introduce program participants to recipes that use a variety of foods to increase their intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes, lean meats, and healthy alternatives to processed and fast foods. They demonstrate different cooking methods that reduce the intake of sugars, fats and salts while still creating food that tastes delicious.
This is an interactive program in which participants assist in the preparation of the recipes and then get to taste the final product. They leave the 90 minute class with the recipes so that they can make them at home.
My Friends House maintains a community garden to help provide fresh produce for its food pantry which provides food weekly for seniors, the unemployed and underemployed, the working poor and others on limited incomes, women, children and the homeless. They also provide a Parish Nurse who who screens individuals for lifestyle diseases – hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and obesity. Visit My Friends House website for volunteer and giving opportunities!
