Porch and Parish The Podcast
Our mission is to make sure every Zachary resident feels heard and engaged! Hosts Mike and/or Jen Gennaro facilitate candid conversations with local leaders, influencers and innovators in Zachary, Louisiana and beyond with the help of producer Mike Holt. New episode every other Monday at noon!
Porch and Parish The Podcast
From Soldier to Nutrition Advocate: Alexis Motley's Mission to Transform Community Health
Join us for a conversation with Alexis Motley, founder of the My Kid Plate Foundation, as she takes us on her journey from US Army veteran to a powerhouse in nutrition education and community health. Alexis wears a lot of hats—wife, mom, and dietetic internship director at Southern University—but at the heart of it all is her passion for making healthy eating accessible to everyone. What started as a simple family project during the pandemic has grown into a game-changing movement, tackling food insecurity and nutrition education head-on. Oh, and she’s got big dreams—like teaming up with Jennifer Hudson!
We’re getting into the work of the My Kid Plate Foundation, breaking down the realities of food deserts and how Alexis and her team are closing the gap with culturally relevant nutrition education, community gardens, and neighborhood refrigerators. She also doesn’t shy away from the challenges, including the need for more diversity in the dietetics field. But through it all, she shares some eye-opening stories—like how school gardens and community partnerships are changing lives.
And in the final stretch of our episode, we’re shining a light on the real impact of grassroots efforts in North Baton Rouge, Zachary, and beyond. From stocking community fridges to teaming up with the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, Alexis is proving that small steps lead to big change. Tune in to hear how you can get involved, suggest new projects, and be part of the movement toward a healthier, more connected community.
I am Alexis Motley, the executive director of my Kid Played Foundation. Keep listening to Porch and Parish the podcast.
Speaker 2:All right, what's up, zachary? We are back with another exciting episode broadcasting from our headquarters right here in downtown Zachary. Our team is planning content for the spring print issue of Porch and Parish and we'd love to hear from you If you're interested in placing an ad with us in 2025 or have a fun story, idea or event to add to the calendar. Reach out to editor at fortuneparishcom or give me a call 225-324-9515.
Speaker 2:Today we are joined by Alexis Motley, a Zachary resident. Veteran of the US Army, the dietetic internship director at Southern University, wife, mother of two and founder of my Kid Plate Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works with families to educate children about healthy eating and lifestyles. I am Jen Gennaro, founder and editor of Fortune Parish and your host for today. Side note, I'm also a newly appointed board member of the my Kid Plate Foundation. Porch and Parish brings you the best of Zachary and the Development North Region through candid conversations every Monday from our headquarters right here on Virginia Street. This is Porch and Parish, the podcast. Stay tuned, we will be right back with the lightning round.
Speaker 3:From the latest TikTok viral sensations to time-tested playroom staples, Zachary Toy Store offers a wide range of products designed to delight children of all ages. Zachary Toy Store is located at 4860 Highway 19 inside of Funtime Pools.
Speaker 2:All right, so I did not send you these questions because I wanted them to be off the cuff. So we are back with the lightning round. Alexis did not receive these in advance. All right, what is one fruit or veggie you'd be happy to never see again in your life?
Speaker 1:Probably a banana.
Speaker 2:What Really? Is it like all bananas, or like mealy bananas? What's what's?
Speaker 1:why we beefing. I'm a texture person. And it's like really mushy in the mouth when you eat it but if I could give up bananas.
Speaker 2:I would If I never had to hear my husband eat a banana again for as long as I live. I would be so great with that. He is the loudest banana eater he's like a horse, I don't know. All right. So what is your favorite vegetable or plant-based dish and how do you prepare it?
Speaker 1:So my favorite plant-based dish. I'm a salad girl. I like all type of salad, so like all type of lettuce. So you know, honestly, when I make a salad it's really I go in the refrigerator and what's in there, because I don't like food waste. So I do a lot of hodgepodge salads.
Speaker 2:Okay, and do you pack one every day for lunch or do you go out to eat?
Speaker 1:No, I do not. So I'm pretty fortunate to be able to come home for lunch. So I also make lunch every day for me, and if someone's home I eat my husband or the boys, I make lunch, but I make lunch pretty much every day unless there's something on my schedule where I can't make lunch.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's pretend it's cheat day and calories aren't real. What are you going to eat? I?
Speaker 1:like a good hamburger, so do I. I like a good hamburger. Cheese. I need cheese, mustard, mayo, no tomato, because I'm allergic but I like a good pickle.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, my go-to. When I was pregnant, I would get either a Big Mac, because they are just so good, and then, um, a cheeseburger with extra pickles and mustard. Dream come true, all right. Last question of the lightning round what is your dream? Collaboration, like a crossover. Now, I figured you could take this in a couple of different directions, so I just want to see what comes to your mind first.
Speaker 1:So when people ask me this all the time, oh really my dream collaboration is to get a personal phone call from Jennifer Hudson to say I'm coming on the Jennifer Hudson show and I get to walk down the aisle and everyone's clapping me up and everyone that her viewers, because she has a lot of them. Here's about my kid play foundation and my work in the community and they want to be additional partners, but Jennifer Hudson would be my dream collaboration.
Speaker 2:You answered that so much better than I even anticipated. So, jennifer Hudson, if you're out there, I can connect you with Alexis. All right, that is it for the lightning round. Okay, so moving into the interview. What inspired you to start my Kid Plate Foundation, covid?
Speaker 1:Okay, I was home. I was no longer just a dietician, I was a teacher, I was a school nurse, a cafeteria worker, a janitor, a referee, and I needed my boys who had a lot of energy to do something. I just moved to Zachary. I had the amazing realtor named Jen who got me into Copper Mill.
Speaker 2:I'm retired now Don't even Okay, carry on. I'm just saying she got us into an amazing neighborhood so we were outside.
Speaker 1:But I needed them to do more than just play. So growing up, I work with my mom and my grandfather all the time with gardening. Well, what they called a garden was really a crop. But I said, hey, let's start doing some things at home. So I started growing things during COVID with my boys, just like everybody else on Instagram and Facebook and Tik TOK.
Speaker 1:And so once the world was open again, I just asked my son's daycare how would you all like to have a school garden or a school garden box? And she was like, oh my God, alexa, that would be amazing. But who's paying for it? I was like, okay, no problem. So I mean, I'm always brainstorming, no matter where I'm at. So just a little funny note about myself I'm always talking to myself. I just don't answer, but I'm always talking. But I was at the beauty salon getting my hair done and I was at the beauty salon getting my hair done and I was just talking about oh my goodness, I really want to get this garden going at my kid's school. I just don't know who to start asking to if they want to donate. And so the hairstylist at the time she said, hey, I'll donate. And she said, however much it costs, just send me the bill. Oh my gosh. And I was like, okay. So I was. That was our first garden at my son's daycare.
Speaker 1:And then, during the time of covid, there were grants out there specifically for dietitians and their initiatives, and I was, like you know, being a former military dietitian, I never really needed an initiative because I was trying to ensure that soldiers were fit to fight. I was making sure our veterans, you know, was managing their diabetes or hypertension. So I never needed a initiative for myself. They had already kind of given us what our initiatives would be. But this time Siggy's Yogurts had a grant that said, whatever initiative you are working on, submit it. Okay, I was like, no problem.
Speaker 1:So I submitted for this grant it was a thirty thousand dollar grant and I did receive an email that said, hey, this is, uh, your first time applying. Sometimes people have to apply multiple times, but don't give up, you know we're very interested. So I took that as okay, try next year. But then I received an email, maybe like two weeks later, like saying you're one of our finalists, like our top 10, and I was like, oh, I was just so excited to be like okay, this is a national brand. This is not. This is not just Louisiana based or Baton Rouge based.
Speaker 2:This is a national brand they're like international right, aren't they like in Iceland? And did you even have like the, the structure of the framework of your organization? Not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1:All I had was an initiative that I wanted to take part in. So, long story short, I became. I was like in the top three. I was like okay, and it turned from singing making the decision and they moved it to social media. It became a social media campaign.
Speaker 1:I received an email saying you need to create a video. I know everyone's creating videos on the phone and I'm. I looked at my husband like you and I, we don't know what to do with this. So I contacted um Garrett he is with the edge for the band at southern and I was just like, hey, can you make me a quick video? And he was like no problem. So he came, made a video, um, and I was just like I was excited with the video, like okay, even if I don't get the grant, I can use this for future grants. And the campaign went on social media for maybe like a month and I found out I was a winner and I was like wow that's incredible but my husband looked at me and said what are, are we going to do with this $30,000?
Speaker 1:And our CPA? He said well, I think you should start a nonprofit. I was like, well, maybe I need to research. You know there's a lot of nonprofits. Maybe I'll just donate this money to a nonprofit. But I didn't find a nonprofit that was doing the things that I wanted to focus on. So that's how my Kid, my kid plate foundation came about.
Speaker 2:So tell us initially, when you did the video and when you applied for the grant, what was the initial mission of my kid plate foundation Initially?
Speaker 1:it was just to bring school gardens to daycare locations and in food desert community. So I was just like well, there's a lot of daycares If you drive around throughout the city of Baton Rouge, in Zachary Baker Central, there's home daycares. And so in my mind it was just like if we would start teaching kids about fruits and vegetables at a very young age, we probably could decrease the amount of picky eaters we have and just expose them to the things like if you grow it, you help me prepare it. Now you can try it. So initially it was just like we just want to get some gardens throughout the city, or the, I would say, the capital region. Let's just get some gardens at daycares at the capital region, throughout the capital region. That was my baseline, that's all I wanted to do with this money and I didn't want it to just sit there. So that was it. That was just like, hey, I just have this small little organization and we're just going to go plant a few gardens, okay, and how has my Kipley Foundation evolved since its inception?
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. So it's not about gardens anymore, it's now I look at things about food access. So during COVID I didn't realize how many people didn't have access to things just as simple as fruits and vegetables. I took for granted as a military dietitian, there's all of my patients had access to multiple grocery stores. So we had a grocery store on the base, like a commissary, and a minimum of about three to four grocery stores around the base. So I just you know you make that assumption. There's grocery stores everywhere. But when COVID happened, my eyes were really opened to see that people didn't have that access.
Speaker 1:So my Kid Plate has turned into providing access. Of course we still do gardens. We have our flagship gardens on Southern University's campus at the daycare center. Now we're at the Southern University Laboratory School. We're actually this weekend we're putting one at Prescott Academy. So gardens go up around Louisiana in the name of my Kid Play Foundation a lot, but access is still a problem. So we fight that daily. So, yeah, now we are focusing on community pantries, slash refrigerators, so to increase the access, but we just don't. I'm just not putting things out there and not educating. So nutrition education with a focus on cultural nutrition is important also. So we focus on access, nutrition, education and diversity.
Speaker 1:And dietetics, dietetics. So, as the dietetic internship director, there's only 3% of African Americans that are actually registered dietitians in the United States, so we want to increase that number. So when I go out and speak, I bring the dietetic interns and let them talk about what they're doing, what their experiences are. Most kids think when you say dietitian, you're a cafeteria worker, that's the only thing you can do work in a right. And that's not true and I have to bring it to them like, hey, you know, at the time Drew Brees was very popular. I was like the Saints has a dietitian, lsu Tigers have a dietitian, you know. So you have to let them know that insurance companies are looking for you, hollywood's looking for you, so dietitians are everywhere. So just getting people to understand that we need dietitians in all facets of life and they, like our patients, need to see people that look like them. So we want to increase diversity in dietetics with all cultures.
Speaker 2:Can you share us? Excuse me, can you share a success story that highlights the impact of the foundation's work?
Speaker 1:So I just told this story, jen, at a meeting, because one of the instructors was asking why would we want to put refrigerators on Southern University's campus with free food? Like why would we do that? Like we're competing with Airmark, that's our big company that sells foods on campus. So we have two refrigerators on Southern University's campus that have it's stocked with healthy food options. So I'm just going to talk about what we put in this week.
Speaker 1:On every Monday we put in, we stocked the refrigerator with, we did turkey cheese sandwiches, side salads, salad dressing, and then we on the side we had donations from anything you can think of that like are non-perishable. A student saw me drive up to the intramural sports complex at Southern University and he's from Chicago, and he said to me that he hadn't received any money yet from his family and that he was still waiting on his financial aid to be applied. And having this refrigerator made it easy for him to get food at no charge and it was still a healthy option. Most people don't realize that Southern University is located in a food desert.
Speaker 1:Absolutely it takes about 20 plus minutes to get to the closest grocery store. So we have to think about the students that are out of state. Maybe they don't have a car. Transportation is an issue because our transportation. If you want to go to the grocery store, you have to walk off campus and cross a busy highway to sit at the bus station. The bus stop, excuse me, and then you wait for the bus to come. You finally get to your destination. Whatever you have, you go back to the bus station to wait more.
Speaker 1:So what might take you and I an hour could be a four hour trip for a student just to get basic needs Right. So when that student told me that I was just like this is bigger than you, alexis, and you're impacting people that you don't even know. So that's one of our biggest success stories. But when I see kids, when I go to my kids' school and they say, hey, we ate cabbage today because we grew that in the garden, oh cool, that really warmed my heart as well At the schools where the gardens are installed.
Speaker 2:who continues with the maintenance Like? Is there an education component to it?
Speaker 1:Yes, so I'll just use Southern University's laboratory school. Their after school program waters the garden. They pull the weeds, and so I've partnered with Pennington Medical Biomedical, and so they have a program called Grow Healthy. So typically schools have teachers teach the lesson plan. Well, I want it to be a greater impact, so my dietetic interns. They teach the lessons, which gives the teachers about an hour break.
Speaker 2:Yes, which they all need, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:So they go once a month and teach the Grow Healthy curriculum. So once they teach that, the after school program goes out and they water the garden, they pick weeds and we've just harvested right before this big freeze we had. The students were so excited. Oh, so we're actually getting ready to harvest again, right? You know, I'm looking and I saw the news and it said we're having another freeze no, I didn't see that.
Speaker 2:Don't tell me I don't want to know.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, but we're getting ready to harvest again, but our after-school programs are taking care of it. But we do have a big list of volunteers that are assigned to a certain school and they maintain the garden. So we just don't leave it to the school because teachers have a lot on them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They're all wearing multiple hats. But, once the food is harvested, where does it go?
Speaker 1:So we, most times we do like a farmer's market, a free market for teachers and family members.
Speaker 2:And we give it away. The kids, the students, family members, yes, okay. And then is some of it prepared in the cafeterias?
Speaker 1:It's not because of the CACFP program, so we're not an actual supplier for them. But if a parent takes it and prepares it for them, they can have it Okay.
Speaker 2:So what are some of the biggest misconceptions parents have about feeding their kids healthy meals? It's too expensive.
Speaker 1:I can't find it, they won't eat it. So I have two boys. Most people say, oh, I bet you they're not picky.
Speaker 3:They're very picky, but there's a lot of workarounds.
Speaker 1:You know we make smoothies and I throw things in there that they're not paying attention to. Sure, I bought them kid knives at a very young age. So they chop, they mince, you know you. They julienne and their version of it. So they help and prepare those meals and I feel like I feel parents believe, oh, they'll never eat their green vegetables. You know, research shows that your taste buds change over time. So they might not like it at the age of two, but you try it again at three or four they might like it.
Speaker 2:So you have to just keep reintroducing the food, right and how does my kid plate help families develop sustainable, healthy eating habits?
Speaker 1:so we provide a lot of education. So, whatever we're growing, we provide recipes for parents. So, whatever. So whatever we're growing, we provide recipes for parents. So whatever's in the I know right now we have cabbage, so we will have a recipe for cabbage like multiple recipes for a parent, and then we'll put the nutrition facts. We'll put some background about cabbage and cultural, like Louisiana culture for them. So we make sure that it's just not we're growing. Education is a big piece and the Grow Healthy curriculum has really helped. So Grow Healthy is just not for students. This semester we will have a healthy nutrition night at one of our schools with Grow Healthy, and so we'll be able to prepare some of the things, possibly from the garden, and the parents can try what we're growing. So we want parents to see what we're doing at school and then they can take it and do it at home as well.
Speaker 2:I love that. So tell us, what role does nutrition play in a child's ability to learn and perform in school?
Speaker 1:So I always tell a parent how do you feel when you have a headache?
Speaker 2:Don't talk to me. I don't want to hear anything, you know exactly so.
Speaker 1:Um, I let them know that when we, when a child has a great breakfast in the morning, they're able to be up, alert and ready to learn, and and when they eat lunch or their snack however, some schools are set up kind of differently it plays a role in keeping them awake, alert and and ready to learn. And you're always my boys, your brain won't grow if you don't eat and you have to eat the right food. So nutrition is the key. I mean, most people feel like their job is the most important, but a doctor will tell you, if you listen to a dietician, you won't come and visit me as often.
Speaker 2:That's so true, and the older we get, the more aware I am of how like if I'm about to blackout from hunger or like low blood sugar.
Speaker 2:you eat a little bit of protein and it's like it's a miracle, you know it just. You feel so much better, or like getting your magnesium in and your vitamin D and C and all that stuff. So I totally agree and I should hope that my kids, um kids establish that and start to learn that very early on so that they set those healthy eating habits All right. So tell us what are some upcoming projects or initiatives that my Kid Plate is working on?
Speaker 1:Our biggest initiative is now. We are working on the community refrigerator slash pantries. So we started in the North Baton Rouge area due to them not having a grocery store and I want to expand to working with whoever's doing the little pantry here in Zachary so that we can help keep that stocked as well.
Speaker 2:I was thinking that I made a note.
Speaker 1:I want to thank the community of Zachary. I did a program or an act where we did a Christmas advent calendar in the Zachary community really showed up and supported me as the you know, as the founder and executive director of my kid plate foundation. But it showed me that if community is what it takes, we don't know what everybody else is doing. But I will have to say the community of Zachary really made a lot of donations and the students were very happy on campus when they came back with the pantries being stocked and we also have another pantry, um, it's little zion baptist church. It's in uh, scotlandville as well. And I, when I say it, warmed my heart. When, when I received a call from one of the gym, the zachary crossfit gym, and said our members want to help out and it was so much food, my, I have a suv and it was filled from my back seat, my trunk, my front seat I just felt so blessed that the zachary community really supported our advent calendar event. But we do have a community garden getting ready to go to one of the schools. I just felt so blessed that the Zachary community really supported our Advent Calendar event. But we do have a community garden getting ready to go to one of the schools in Baton Rouge. It's the Prescott Academy. We'll be actually doing that tomorrow. And then we have some people that want to continue to pack the pantries because our pantries on Southern's campus have made the national tackle hunger list for the NFL. So we're excited about that. So we do have the Super Bowl coming up. Pantries on Southern's campus have made the national tackle hunger list for the NFL Wow. So we're excited about that. So we do have the Super Bowl coming up. So my students and myself will be headed down to New Orleans for the taste of the NFL the Saturday before the Super Bowl, and at that event we were able to talk about our pantries and my kid played as always in the forefront, because the school maybe can't do certain things and when it comes to donations, people might have questions like why am I donating to a school? But when they donate to my Kid Plate, they know it's going not only to Southern University but the North Baton Rouge area, the Baker area, zachary area, it's going all over Baton Rouge. So that's the biggest things. Coming up is the tackle hunger event for the Super Bowl. I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1:I've received a phone call, like I think I was fanning out more than I listened, but the CDC. There was a representative from the CDC that called just two days ago and was saying hey, we're looking at the national list of taco hunger lists and you all have a pantry and we realize you're in a school desert. I mean not a school desert, a food desert. And how can we partner and help? And I have, like this big meeting next week. So people are starting to realize that, um, pantries are needed, community refrigerators are needed, and if you can donate to any community refrigerator, we have some around, you know, around Baton Rouge, people really need it. It's not just people that you might everybody's like, oh, it's just homeless. No, there's a lot of people that might live paycheck to paycheck and those meals come in handy and that food comes in handy.
Speaker 2:Now, as far as the refrigerators, how are those paid for Like? Are y'all looking for donations for actual fridges?
Speaker 1:Not at this time. So the refrigerators that are on campus that we have, and the one at the Little Zion Baptist Church, was actually purchased by Representative Vanessa LaFleur. She purchased the refrigerators and I was contacted like, hey, we have these refrigerators and we want to do a community refrigerator initiative, and where can we put them on campus? And so I started making calls. I'm never going to turn down a donation and so I started making phone calls and we got them on campus. One is actually in the building that I work out of Pinky Thrift, and then we have one at our intramural sports complex and then we put one at the church, the little Zion Baptist church and as far as the food, is that completely donor driven?
Speaker 2:Yes, and there's just no shortage of it, like you just always seem to have enough to stock the pantries and the fridges At this point.
Speaker 1:People just make donations. I get phone calls. Or my husband called me yesterday and he said did you call someone about a donation? I was like why? He said, well, there's a case of walnuts and a case of pickles outside. So, honestly, I'm all about my faith and I always think about manna from heaven. God is constantly blessing me and I feel like I want to keep blessing the community. So people are donating.
Speaker 1:Now, we'll never stop a donation, but there are some things that I like to tell people. When you're donating, especially if you're just getting it out your house, check the expiration date. Please check the expiration date. Most people might not have can openers. So if you can get pop tops cans or if like if it's tuna or chicken, get the packages Right. So maybe like easy access to those things and don't forget about spices. Like people forget, like just because it's out of a can, like people forget, like just because it's out of a can, you can still make it taste good by donating some type of spices. So spices are things that we really ask for as well good point.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, one more thing, all right. So if you had unlimited resources, what is the one thing you would implement right now?
Speaker 1:every community would have a community refrigerator that was stocked on a weekly basis for free food. I would want every community, especially the communities that are in food deserts, to have community refrigerators.
Speaker 2:How can listeners get involved or support my Kid Plate's mission?
Speaker 1:So you can go to our website at wwwmykidplateorg. You can make a donation or you can sign up to volunteer or receive emails or when we're going to have activities and when you, you can email us as well and just say hey, this is my idea. How can we collaborate? We love collaboration. We love to work with others in the community, but if you want to still see our refrigerators going and the manna from heaven, make a donation.
Speaker 1:And I do want to tell this story. I'm going to try my best not to cry because this just happened yesterday. I think my husband thinks I'm crazy you guys, because I get crazy emails and phone calls all the time. But we made a simple Instagram reel. Ok, jen, we were like Facebook people, so you know Instagram and TikTok, they're all you know. So one of my students made a simple Instagram reel and it was just showing people about where to find the pantry. I woke up to 3,000 views. I was like wow. I was like 50 shares, so I was like that's so popular. I was like 50 shares, so I was like that's amazing.
Speaker 1:But, I received an email from a mom. She said she was a first-generational college student and food insecurity was very real in her life and she wanted to say thank you and she sent a donation for us to be able to provide additional meals. I have chills right now, but people see what we're doing in the community and what we're doing for students and they are tapping in. So donations are very much needed. But I thought that was just so heartfelt. She emailed me this morning to confirm that I received the donation I said we did Was that the pickles.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:She actually sent a cash donation, but I was just so excited that she was, um, she, she understood what we were doing and we don't put just anything in our pantries. I want everyone to be clear. I put my food up there with paneer bread or higher or whole foods. So the the mom said she was looking in the refrigerator like, oh my god, I wish I had this when I was in college. So we made salads and the sandwiches. So I mean I say the same thing like I wish I had a free sandwich and salad when I was in school and we didn't. But just to receive that donation, just to say thank you for what you're doing for the students. It reminds me on a daily basis when I'm exhausted or when I'm like, is this really my purpose? That I'm really working in my purpose and impacting the community um, is there any sort of expiration that?
Speaker 2:I know we talked about not donating expired pantry goods, but I mean you've mentioned the ham sandwiches and everything, so how does that work? Like there's a time limit there, right?
Speaker 1:So every Monday we prepare whatever we're going to put in the refrigerators. So actually today the students were like, hey, we want to do Caesar chicken wraps and we want to make put parfaits in there, so we keep it in there only seven days. So whatever is left after seven days, we discard. And whatever we're preparing I, we discard, and when what? Whatever we're preparing, I want the all the uh, the listeners to know all of my students and volunteers are serve, safe, qualified. So they know we wear hairnets and gloves. It's just like a restaurant. So if you're ever on Southern's campus and you want to see what cafe La Cumba looks like, please send and you guys can come visit our cafe. But it's a full-fledged restaurant. We just prepare free meals. Now we were charging, but now it's a different mission and we are giving things away for free.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. And how many meals are you guys preparing every week? So?
Speaker 1:this week alone we did about 60 sandwiches and about 50 side salads. So they were breaking it down what we're going to do for next week. And I would like to say that the members of Delta, sigma, theta, the Baton Rouge Sigma chapter, they have supported also because they received the grant from Vanessa LaFleur that would allow us to receive the refrigerators. So they're also supporting the mission by, you know, stocking our non-perishable goods and they really take care of the little Zion Baptist church, that refrigerator, so they make sure there's food in that refrigerator so that my students can make sure there's food in the refrigerators on campus. So it's a really it's a huge collaboration.
Speaker 1:It's just not me. It's a lot of people behind the scenes, but we have a lot of people that are emailing and asking hey, how can we just volunteer? And we need volunteers. You know you want to keep things clean. I always want people to understand it's dignity with food dignity. We don't want you to think we're just throwing it in the refrigerator. Presentation is everything. The students said that they believe that I grade them on presentation and I do. I said it's like a grocery store. You shop with your eyes. So I want the students in the community to walk up and say wow, they really care about us.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and finally, if a listener out there knows of a food desert or um, has an idea. I'm sorry, I'm going to start that over from the top. I'm getting hungry. There goes my blood sugar. I need okay. So if a listener out there, um, knows of a food desert that you have not mentioned, um, do you guys take suggestions or how does that work if somebody would like a community garden or a food pantry set?
Speaker 1:up. You can go to our website and it says do you want more information? And you just type in the box and tell us. And I mean we can't help if we don't know. So send us a message or email. And again, our website is wwwmykidplateorg and you can send us a message. And we love to collaborate, we love to help.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, that is it for this week's episode of Porch and Parish, the podcast with Alexis Motley of my Kid Plate Foundation. It has been a pleasure to have you here today. If you would like to get in touch with Alexis or volunteer with my Kid Plate Foundation, reach out to her at wwwmykidplateorg. Is that right? That's correct. All right.
Speaker 2:Huge shout out to our community partners, like the City of Zachary, the East Baton Rouge Parish Library System and Breck Parks, who stand with us in our mission to make Zachary a place where every resident feels heard and engaged. Thanks to the generosity and support of our community partners, the magazine, podcast and everything you see online is possible and free because of them. Remember the three T's that make up quality of life Pick up trash when you see it, foster technology at any expense and embrace an attitude of tolerance for diverse voices to begin to engage everyone's talents in our community. Those diverse voices are the creative engines that will drive everyone's talents in our community. Those diverse voices are the creative engines that will drive the future success of our economy. Have a great week, everyone.
