By Jessica Lawson | Co-founder
At Mariposa, we remain deeply committed to helping girls developing life-long, healthy habits, protecting the environment and respecting the abundant natural resources the Dominican Republic has to offer.
With our garden thriving and our new teaching kitchen up and running, we have been able to implement an entirely plant-based nutrition program, serving nearly 1,000 delicious, colorful and healthy meals and snacks to our girls, staff and volunteers every week!
In addition, we've started cooking classes that allow the girls to get creative and develop recipes with the organic produce straight from the garden. We know that when girls take ownership of what they eat and their health, it will have a ripple effect throughout the entire community. As large contributers to household responsibilities, most young girls are at least partially responsible for preparing meals for their families. They are proud to implement their new knowledge and skills in their homes!
Shifting to a whole-food, plant-forward diet while on site, is not only beneficial to our girls' health, it's a tribute to their culture and an acknwledgement of the extraordinary life-giving resources that their country has to offer. The Dominican people have been living off of the land for generations and our farm to table gardening and cooking classes focus on learning new and exciting ways to prepare both familiar and some new ingredients.
Growing and preparing their own healthy food is empowering and it allows them to expand their palettes and develop new skills that will help keep them healthy and influence the people closest to them.
Like everything we do at the Mariposa Center for Girls, making it fun goes a long way. We work together to come up with new recipes and hope to create a cookbook in the future. Every single girl on campus gets involved in some aspect of gardening, recipe development, shopping & budgeting, cooking and serving. It brings such joy to everyone's day at the Center.
The Mariposa Center for Girls has truly become a wellness sanctuary over the years and this is all possible because of the generosity and support of people like you.
Thank you for being a part of our team!
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