Draft:The Charlie Cart Project

The Charlie Cart Project is a non-profit food education program founded in 2015 in Berkeley, California, that operates in 47 states in the United States. The organization's mission is to change the food system through empowering communities with an accessible and mobile culinary education program. The Charlie Cart provides a fully equipped mobile kitchen and a classroom recipe curriculum aligned with Common Core standards to trusted local institutions including schools, libraries, food banks, clinics, and Veteran's Associations. Its curriculum is designed to give an inter-disciplinary education around food that touches other subjects such as math, English, science, and social studies.

As of 2021, the Charlie Cart Project has reached an estimated 350,000 children through hands-on training and workshops, and enlisted the support of educators from over 275 different organizations.

The name Charlie Cart is a reference to the chuck wagon, a mobile field kitchen from the early pioneering days in the United States and Canada.

History
The first Charlie Cart was tested in 2014, and after an initial fundraising campaign that raised over $40,000, the organization shipped its first three carts in 2015. The project's founder and Executive Director, Carolyn Federman, worked with Celery Design in Berkeley to create the first prototype of the Charlie Cart.

In 2016, Lowcountry Food Bank in South Carolina became the first hunger relief organization to purchase a Charlie Cart.

By October 2018, the Charlie Cart expanded to over 100 sites in 30 states across the country. In 2019, the Charlie Cart grew to 150 locations in 37 states, and reached 200,000 children and their families.

An analysis by Johns Hopkins in 2023 revealed that 84 percent of children in a Charlie Cart lesson tried a new food, and 38 percent encouraged their parents to incorporate that food into their recipes at home.

Leadership
The Charlie Cart was founded by Carolyn Federman, who is currently the Executive Director. Prior to starting Charlie Cart, she served as Development Director at the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Edible Schoolyard. In 2018, she published a cookbook designed for children, "New Favorites for New Cooks: 50 Delicious Recipes for Kids to Make."

Jacquelyn Chi, who serves as the current Program Director, has previously worked with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and OpenTable. The current Director of Operations and Strategic Partnerships, Cecily Upton, co-founded FoodCorps, a national nonprofit that aims to bring healthy foods to schools.

In addition to its staff, Charlie Cart has an Advisory Board and Board of Directors whose members include notable food educators, policymakers, and business professionals. Among its advisors is Alice Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley and the Edible Schoolyard Project. Waters was one of the first donors to the hunger relief organization Share Our Strength, and has served as a vice president of Slow Food since 2002. Other members of its Advisory Board include prominent author Michael Pollan, and Harold McGee, a trustee for the Oxford Symposium whose work strongly influenced Federman's development of the Charlie Cart curriculum.

The current Board Chair is Melissa Ho, a Senior Vice President at World Wildlife Fund. Marc Friend, the CEO of RapidAPI, also serves on the Board of Directors as Board Treasurer.

Sponsors and Partners
The Charlie Cart partners with several companies to provide equipment and cooking tools for its carts, including Dexas, Richlite, Progressive, Vitamix, Victorinox Swiss Army, and Cuisinart.