Mission and Purpose

The main purpose of the Farmer's Kitchen is to link California small farmers with the urban population by extending the presence of the Hollywood Farmers' Market through the entire week. The Farmer's Kitchen will offer urban residents a convenient source of fresh produce and healthy meals made through the joint effort of local farmers and urban chefs and apprentices.

The Farmer's Kitchen will also educate and train community members through nutrition classes and job training programs. Mothers and caregivers will learn to prepare nutritious meals on a budget using local produce through SEE-LA's successful "Good Cooking" classes. Job training will give participants food industry knowledge and skills; in a community with a high unemployment rate, the job training program will create career opportunities by linking graduates of its program with local chefs and food experts and by employing participants as apprentices in the Farmer's Kitchen during their training.

Finally, the Farmer's Kitchen will create an additional venue for farmers to market their goods directly, thereby helping ensure the economic stability of local farmers. In addition to the weekly Hollywood Farmers' Market, farmers will benefit from sales of produce and value-added products for the retail component, for the "Good Cooking" classes, and for the Healthy Market Basket Program.

Drawing on eighteen successful years of the weekly Hollywood Farmers' Market, the Farmer's Kitchen will be a permanent site for rural-urban exchange and will spur economic development to the benefit of both the community and local farmers. The Farmer's Kitchen will ultimately be a self-sustaining and permanent food security solution for Hollywood's population.

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