Thanks to a partnership with Quicken Loans, we launched a new cohort that exposes 2000+ 6th grade students from Detroit Public Schools (in groups of 25-50 and over 36 days) to 45 minutes of high-impact, hands-on DFA programming! Quicken Loans’ Day of Innovation takes place over two eight-week periods–one in the Fall and one in the Spring. With a focus on nutrition and entrepreneurship, all participants created smoothies and branded their products in groups. Students learned basic nutrition facts about fruits and leafy greens while enjoying their delicious creations. Small groups then pitched their branded smoothies to the larger group. Some of the brand names they came up with for their smoothies included ‘Gucci Smoothie’, ‘Wild Berries’, and ‘Smoothie Ninjas”. This small introduction to Detroit Food Academy, nutrition, and the world of food entrepreneurship sparked passions and interest for many of the students! DFA will continue this program in 2019, so keep an eye out for more fun and innovative smoothies!

Andrea Daldin + Diamond Dantzler
Classroom Facilitators

After a whirlwind of a summer concluding with the Detroit Lions X Detroit Food Academy Cooking Competition, we have rolled out our programming at 15 cohorts this Fall. While our partnerships with long-standing partners continue to thrive, we have launched cohorts at new sites, such as the Boggs School (5th-8th grade), Fischer Upper Magnet Academy housed at the Ford Resource and Economic Center (FREC), and Hamtramck High School. We also launched an exciting new cohort in partnership with Quicken Loans’ Day of Innovation that exposes 2000+ 6th grade students from Detroit Public Schools (in groups of 25-50 and over 36 days) to 45 minutes of high-impact, hands-on DFA programming! Another exciting new cohort, launched in partnership with Racquet Up, starts this month. We’ll be working with 90 students between 5th and 12th grade and gearing the programming more toward nutrition and wellness. Stay tuned! In the meantime, please see our growing list of cohorts below:

• Cody High School
• Denby High School
• Henry Ford Academy: School for Creative Studies
• Osborn High School
• Western International High School
• Voyageur College Prep High School
• Hamtramck High School
• Fischer Upper Magnet Academy housed at the Ford Resource and Economic Center (FREC)
• Advanced Leadership Cohort (pulls from all high schools)
• Small Batch Fellowship (pulls from all high schools)
• Quicken Loans’ Day of Innovation (2,000+ 6th graders)
• Focus: Hope (5th-8th Grade)
• Boggs School (5th-8th Grade)
• Racquet Up (5th-12th Grade)
• Brilliant Detroit in Southwest Detroit (young mothers)
• Ruth Ellis Center (young adults)

Hello and welcome to Fall from this year’s Advanced Leadership Cohort!

It’s a season full of loss and transformation as we witness the trees change and lose their colorful leaves, feeling the wind embrace us with its gentle touch provoking the warmth in our spirits to emerge. Fall is a time of change, loss, and reflection that invites everyone to rethink, rebuild, and prepare to come alive in advance of winter months.

The season is an appropriate comparison to the changes and growth taking place within our Advanced Leadership Cohort. Every year, we encourage our students to challenge themselves to the point of transformation. They fine tune their palates as they gear up to host their first professional pop-up nearing the end of the semester. We have an amazing group of youth dedicated to improving their many talents, reviving their communities, and having the difficult conversations that come with food justice work.

There will be hard times, triumph, accountability, and transformation, much like the trees, but the outcomes will be nothing short of unbe-leaf-able!

Kamaria Gray
Advanced Leadership Program Coordinator

Four talented DFA chefs squared off in our second annual Detroit Lions X Detroit Food Academy “Chopped” style cooking competition at Eastern Market. Each DFA chef teamed up with a DFA mentor and Detroit Lions player to form competing trios. Emotions ran high, intensity was palpable, and the competition was neck-in-neck as students from Voyageur, Western, and Cody High Schools filled the bleachers and cheered on their classmates. After serving up five delicious courses, Tatianna, a Sophomore from Cody High school took home grand prize and a $1,500 scholarship to Baker College / Culinary Institute of Michigan. A big thank you to Ford, Detroit Lions, Baker College, Culinary Institute of Michigan, Office of School Nutrition, and Eastern Market for making this event possible!

Click here to see more amazing photos!

Jen Rusciano
Executive Director

After an action-packed summer selling gourmet ice pops at farmers markets, pop-ups, events, and parties, we are wrapping up our 2018 Popshop season. Our alumni are already in the process of experimenting with new exciting flavors for next season, and you can start planning ahead for your 2019 Spring/Summer/Fall events by booking The Detroit Popshop today!

As we enter November we will be taking orders for our Holiday Gift Boxes. This year we will be offering our Small Batch Big Change Gift Boxes featuring five delicious Mitten Bites and a jar of Slow Jams–all handcrafted by our talented young chefs. Click here to learn more!

Stay on the look-out for Mitten Bites in new packaging! Later this month we will be rolling out our new pre-printed bags. The new packaging will allow us to offer them at a lower price point and each Mitten Bite bar will now have 200-250 calories max. We look forward to growing the Mitten Bites brand and supplying more, competitive wage hours to our youth and alumni.

Jacob Schoenknecht
Small Batch Director

On October 18, we held our very first Meet & Greet Friend Raiser! It was the first of many to come and a beautiful way to launch our annual 100 New Friends Campaign. If you’re interested in becoming a Friend of DFA, click this link or the picture below to fill out our form, and we’ll get right back to you! If you would like to learn more first, please feel free to email us at directors@detroitfoodacademy.org.

Noam Kimelman
Board President

Tis the sea-sun to recap on this years amazing summer program, packed to the brim with exciting opportunities and plenty chances for some fun in the Detroit sun.

The focus this summer was all things food justice. We got our hands dirty with the environment, planted seeds around urban agriculture, chopped it up on culinary careers, and washed ourselves clean with a week of lessons devoted to water.  

The students had a blast learning the ins and outs of food access and grew passionate about impacting their individual communities in positive ways. Seventeen little folks now dedicated to changing lives in a big way, gaining influence from all the wonderful guest speakers and hosts invited into our program.

There were many worthwhile field trips but a staff favorite was definitely our visit to the SW Bee Farm. It was a trip that was feared and balked at but by the end the students were donning full bee suits and eating honey from the comb. Their hesitancy turned into healing as Antonio and Luke guided them to the depths of a hive that no student had gone before. The summer was much like the hive experience: it took hard work and a collaborative effort, and a few people were stung, but the final product was something sweeter than dew. A honey firmly packed together with the joys and triumphs of our youth, the sugary stick of an intentional community, and the slow drip of lasting impact. A huge shout out to the students for being the sweet in the bottom of all our tea.

Kamaria Gray
Advanced Leadership Program Coordinator