Mobile Kitchen to Help Combat Hunger in Camden County

The Camden County Library System is using a $59,000 grant from the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development to fund a mobile culinary center designed to help foster literacy skills focused on nutrition, food selection and food preparation, the library announced Monday morning.

The mobile center will focus on communities around the county with low literacy levels, particularly in those designated as ‘Food Deserts’ by the US Department of Agriculture.

A ‘Food Desert’ is defined as a community where residents have limited ability to get affordable, nutritious food because they live far from a supermarket or large grocery store and don’t have easy access to transportation.

Camden is regarded as a food desert. It has 75,000 residents, and saw its first new supermarket in 40 years open in 2014. However, PriceRite is still the only operating grocery store in the city.

According to the USDA, over 60 percent of the state’s ‘Food Deserts’ are located in South Jersey.

The lack of access to nutritious food and limited literacy skills, such as being unable to read food labels, supermarket signage or understand the cost of food relative to its nutritional value, are cited by the library as factors contributing to diagnosed cases of high blood pressure, high cholesterol or Type 2 Diabetes among residents living in ‘Food Deserts’ like Camden.

To combat this problem, the mobile kitchen can be transported to any of the library’s eight branches and other locations to demonstrate cooking techniques and recipes.

It will be complemented by a collection of books about nutrition, healthy eating and consumer literacy with iPads and a mobile hotspot available.

The NJ Department of Labor and Work Force development recognizes that such critical health problems interfere with people’s ability to productively join and participate in the local workforce.

The library will rely on its partnerships with Literacy Volunteers of Camden County and the Camden County One-Stop Career Center to implement the program and find residents in need of its services, which it hopes will help residents at the lowest levels of literacy gain skills in reading, consumer math, converting recipes, interpreting nutrition labels and understanding supermarket signage.

“As we engage with our communities, we have become conscious of the many external and social factors that contribute to low literacy and unemployment. We are committed to addressing these challenges through innovative library services such as this program,” Camden County Library Director Linda Devlin said.

“Access to important information such as nutrition and proper food preparation is essential to daily meal planning in order to raise a healthy family,” Camden County Freeholder Bill Moen, liaison to the Camden County Library System, said. “The Camden County Library’s mobile kitchen will make this vital information available and help to foster healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime.”

Other workshops will focus on healthy eating on a budget and ESL conversation classes centered on international cuisine.

“People can become literate in many different ways,” Devlin said. “Food is both a universal language and a universal need that we can use to advance literacy skills across cultures. The versatility of the mobile kitchen will allow us to reach many parts of the county through our branches and off-site through our partners. My team is excited to take library services in this new direction, and we look forward to working with our partners in making the program a success for the residents of Camden County.”

The attached image is a Patch file photo of a mobile kitchen in California