BLAST has the responsibility of giving the “Food: Whose Choice is it Anyways?” workshop to different groups and organizations. Our goal in giving the workshop is to raise awareness about the different food options available to consumers and in the process, offer some healthy alternatives to less desirable (but far more accessible) foods. Our most recent opportunity to give the Food Choices workshop was at Sportsmen’s Tennis Club in Dorchester. BLAST Interns started a garden in the area behind the courts last year, and thus we have already established a strong relationship with the youth tennis camp. Every Monday during the summer, the BLAST interns get a chance to work with the youth in our garden.

We were excited to give our polished workshop to an audience we had experience with, having worked with the young ones in our garden throughout the summer. However, due to the enormity of the group, we had to mix up our workshop a little, and give it in separate groups, each BLAST intern maintaining his or her own section of the presentation. We split the youth up, after playing a heated round of river-bank and proceeded with the action-packed workshop.

By the end of the Food Choices workshop, the youth had sampled some scrumptious, homemade smoothies, salsa and even got to create their own advertisements promoting a select piece of healthy produce. Although the crowd was varied in age, from about 7-8 years old to 14-15 years old, we got our message about healthy food options and had some fun along the way.