Draft:Charlie Cart Project

The Charlie Cart Project is a non-profit food education program founded in 2015 by Carolyn Federman in Berkeley, California.

The Charlie Cart Project reaches children and educators at more than 500 schools, libraries, food banks, clinics, and Veterans Associations in 46 states. The organization's mission is to change the food system from the ground up by empowering communities with an accessible and mobile culinary education program.

The organization's mission is to change the food system from the ground up by empowering communities with an accessible and mobile culinary education program.

The Charlie Cart Project’s namesake Charlie Cart is a fully equipped mobile kitchen to be used alongside proprietary classroom curriculum aligned with Common Core standards.The interdisciplinary curriculum uses food education to also teach math, English, science, and social studies. The name Charlie Cart is a reference to the chuck wagon, a mobile field kitchen from the early pioneering days in the United States and Canada.

As of 2024, the Charlie Cart Project has reached an estimated 500,000 children.

History

The first Charlie Cart was tested in 2014, and after an initial fundraising campaign that raised over $40,000, the organization shipped its first three carts in 2015. The project's founder and Executive Director, Carolyn Federman, worked with Celery Design in Berkeley to create the first prototype of the Charlie Cart.

In 2016, Lowcountry Food Bank in South Carolina became the first hunger relief organization to purchase a Charlie Cart. By October 2018, the Charlie Cart Project expanded to over 100 sites in 30 states. In 2019, the Charlie Cart grew to 150 locations in 37 states, and reached 200,000 children and their families.

An analysis by Johns Hopkins in 2023 revealed that 84% of children with exposure to the Charlie Cart Project tried a new food, and 38% encouraged their parents to incorporate that food into their recipes at home.

Leadership

The Charlie Cart was founded by Executive Director Carolyn Federman. Prior to starting the Charlie Cart Project, she served as Development Director at the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Edible Schoolyard. In 2018, she published a cookbook, New Favorites for New Cooks: 50 Delicious Recipes for Kids to Make.

Jacquelyn Chi is the current Program Director. She previously worked with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and OpenTable. The current Director of Operations and Strategic Partnerships, Cecily Upton, co-founded FoodCorps, a national nonprofit that aims to bring healthy foods to schools.

In addition to its staff, the Charlie Cart Project has an Advisory Board and Board of Directors whose members include notable food educators, policymakers, and business professionals. Among its advisors is Alice Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley and the Edible Schoolyard Project. Waters was one of the first donors to the hunger relief organization Share Our Strength and has served as a vice president of Slow Food since 2002. Other members of its Advisory Board include prominent author Michael Pollan and Harold McGee, a trustee for the Oxford Symposium whose work strongly influenced Federman's development of the Charlie Cart curriculum.

The current Board Chair is Melissa Ho, a Senior Vice President at World Wildlife Fund. Marc Friend, the CEO of RapidAPI, also serves on the Board of Directors as Board Treasurer.

Sponsors and Partners

The Charlie Cart partners with several companies to provide equipment and cooking tools for its carts, including Dexas, Richlite, Progressive, Vitamix, Victorinox Swiss Army, and Cuisinart.