All About December (Originally posted in January 2024)

Table for Lou - Keeps you In the Lou’p

Quote of the Month: “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.” – Michael Jordan

2023 in review: What a year! 

• At the beginning of 2023, Anthony was going up to St. Vincent’s weekly by himself to teach kids how to cook

• April, Anthony partnered weekly with a young chef who specializes in desserts. Our volunteer pool has continued to grow significantly since then!

• May, Anthony left his previous Nonprofit to form Table for Lou

• June, Table for Lou started catering at BJC Children’s and in November we wrapped up our 6th month of catering. We started out by feeding roughly 40 people a week and now we typically feed 100 folks. We fed well over 1,400 people in 2023!

• August, we started doing this very newsletter monthly

• October, our St. Vincent’s program hit its 5 year anniversary!

• November, we showed off our beautiful new logo! 

• November also saw the passing of the person who inspired Table for Lou and got the St. Vincent’s program going 5 years ago. She was an incredible woman and I miss her very much.

Table for Lou wouldn’t be possible without the help of our volunteers and the generosity with donations. If you’d like to donate or get involved, click here! On average, it takes $5 to feed one child a massive helping, including their left overs.

December Highlights:

Dinner’s on the Table - at BJC Children’s Hospital

We ended the year on a high note, bringing in a few new volunteers, and seeing some of our regular families going home for good. Going into the month, I figured, the hospital would be slower, with the holidays, but I was wrong. We not only saw our regulars, but a lot of them had family come in town.

The Kids’ Table - at St. Vincent’s

We continue to ask our kids what they want to cook up in our classes and they rarely disappoint! Our first week of December, the students just wanted to make fancy sandwiches and cookies. Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but sometimes I get the feeling our kids don’t care how elaborate our meals are as long as we are hanging out! Let me tell you, a panini press will make anyone feel like Chef Remy from Ratatouille! 

The following week, our kids wanted to learn how to make burgers and cheesecake (one of our most requested desserts). I’ve said it before, these kids are creative! They took our cheesecake ingredients and somehow made them into the full cast of Rudolf! We wrapped up December by having a cookie party, making three different kinds. When we arrived at St. Vincent’s, we didn’t see any kids. The staff let us know there was no school that day, so kids might not come. 15 minutes later, we had almost 20 hungry kids begging to start cooking! We served up a massive pot of gumbo which didn’t stand a chance against the army of hungry students. Can you believe that most of our kids had never eaten gumbo before?!
Each night in December, we were breaking records for the number of kids in our class and number of kids being fed. I was surprised, since a few of the nights the kids were on winter break. It’s wonderful to see our students enjoying themselves enough to come back week after week!
One of our regulars who loads up a few leftover containers every week told us that she feeds her family with the meals we cook. St. Vincent’s has also been letting their young residents come down after we are done cooking to grab any extra food we have. Needless to say, we have increased the volume of food we produce dramatically! I get choked up thinking about our kids are feeding the families in our community!

Tip of the Month

Did you know, Alexander the Great was conquering countries at the age of 18? 

Mozart wrote his first symphony at 8, including the banger melody featured on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “ABCs.” 

Braille, the tactile language for the blind, was developed by a 15 year old! 

Our tip this month is actually  more of an encouragement than a tip. Make sure you are giving the young people in your life the freedom to try things, fail and learn from their mistakes. I promise you’ll be surprised how resourceful kids can get when they are given some responsibility and time to think through tasks on their own. Sure, T4L teaches kids how to measure things and how to know when food is done. What is the most important kitchen skill I feel like we teach them? That almost everything can be fixed. Just about every week, someone makes a mistake and they get to see how I work through fixing it in real time. I have the kids taste what they are cooking and ask them what it needs. When they accidentally pour out a whole box of baking powder in our dry ingredients, we scoop it out. Is something burning on the stove? A splash of water is often the remedy. 

I learn by doing. When I have someone holding my hand each step of the way, I don’t learn as well, or I get frustrated. I want kids to know I am there to catch them if they fall, but that they have the power to independently make a delicious meal that their friends will enjoy!

Cardinal Numbers:

In just 6 months, Table for Lou served more than 1,400 family members at Children’s. 

1,400 people is more employees than are estimated to work at the following institutions combined: The St Louis Arch, Art Museum, History Museum, The Zoo, Science Center, City Museum, and The Aquarium