So here is our dream:

Imagine……A building in the center of Sonoma County- downtown Santa Rosa would be perfect. We are minutes from thousands of kids and within a hour or two’s drive from hundreds of thousands of kids!

Imagine……A wonderful kitchen with lots of counter space and equipment for kids and their families to come and cook. It would also be our training kitchen for future D5 chefs. It will be suitable for filming as we see a future D5 Culinary and Nutrition TV show mostly taught by the kids, for the kids.

This space would be big enough to have seminars with incredible speakers, but not too big. Mostly this space would have a great energy and vibe. Kids and families, health professionals, and well, everyone, will want to take classes and drop by because it feels so good to be here!

This doesn’t have to be a dream. With your help, it can and will be a reality. Will you help us?

Here are some ways to help:

~Write a really big check. 🙂

~ Write any kind of check to go into our kitchen fund.

~Do you of someone who owns one of many empty buildings downtown Santa Rosa? Better helping the community and ‘our’ kids than having it sit empty, right? The old Sawyers’s News building on 4th Street would be fantastic!

~If you own a business, donate a percentage of the profits to D5.

~Spread the word! This is so powerful and helps so much!

Let us and everyone know else know if you have further ideas! We’d like this by the end of 2012 and with your help, it WILL be a reality!

Thanks so much!

We picked up the fliers that go home in the kids backpacks next week for our upcoming class at Brook Haven in Sebastopol. It’s always so exciting knowing we’ll meet and teach a whole new group of kids!

Yeah!

We are so thankful for Jerome Miller of DesireMint  for updating our web site!

Do you like the looks of the Get Involved page? Now all pertinent information is there to make it easy for individuals and business to decide what level of involvement they’d like to choose.

What about the new look of the Home page? We love it!!

Please help us support those people who support us. Just go to the Get Involved page and click on Jerome’s business logo, DesireMint.

We love progress……

Bay Area Focus is hosted by the EMMY-winning host Susan Sikora and airs on Sunday mornings. Be sure to watch this Sunday as DirectionFive gets a great pitch!

D5 on Bay Area Focus

Bay Area Focus

We are so thankful that the John and Jennifer Webley foundation has donated $5,000 to DirectionFive! We can start building our scholarship fund, our we-want-our-own-kitchen-by-the-end-the-year fund and we can also purchase much needed new equipment.

It’s people like John and Jennifer who see the vision of DirectionFive and want to do what they can to help us grow. They want to help us help kids.

Thank you so much John and Jennifer! We appreciate your donation so much!

Yesterday we made Vegan Patties at Proctor Terrace and each girl (this class is all girls-the very first time that has happened) added their own herbs/spices to their pattie. Some chose fennel and oregano, some curry and a dash of cayenne. Depending on the spices used, they sauted their pattie in either coconut oil or olive oil. Next they stuffed their whole-wheat pita half with sprouts/grated carrots/lettuce and their Vegan Pattie. Yum!

Here’s the recipe!

Vegan Patties

Help us think of a better name for these delicious burgers. Serve them with grated carrots, sprouts, lettuce and sliced tomatoes on a whole-grain bun.

Serves 6

1 14-oz can garbanzo beans, drained
1/2 cup quinoa, cooked
1 red onion, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon cumin, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon sea salt
Dash cayenne

Place garbanzo beans in the food processor and process until smooth. Place red onion in food processor and pulse until chopped fine. Add cooked quinoa and the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. Form into patties and sauté in 1-2 tablespoons olive oil for 3 minutes on each side or bake in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Notes: Change the herbs if you like…use cilantro instead of the parsley and skip the coriander powder. We like to add 1 teaspoon of curry powder.

To cook quinoa:
Wash quinoa very well in a fine mesh strainer, at least twice, or it will be bitter.
Bring 1 cup water to boil in a 2 quart saucepan. Add 1/2 cups quinoa and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, stir. Return to a boil and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Source: adapted from The Diet Cure by Julia Ross

Per Serving: 309 Calories; 5g Fat (14.2% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 53g Carbohydrate; 13g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 336mg Sodium.

Irema, Mackenzie and Haley

We are so excited! If you order your groceries from The Green PolkaDot Box, they will donate up to 10% of your order’s value to DirectionFive! It’s organic and natural food, delivered to your door. Think Costco (membership fee, but much less expensive) but all non-GMO…’clean’ food. Just click on this link, sign up, place your order and type in our code so we can build D5! Easy! Our code is 98445. Here’s the link:

We are so pleased to announce that The Green PolkaDot Box is our very first long-term partner!

The GreenPolka Dot Box is an on-line grocery store. You order all your favorite brands knowing you are ordering non-GMO, ‘clean’ food and for every order you make The ‘Box’ donates anywhere from 5-10 % of your order’s amount to DirectionFive! It’s a win-win for sure!

When you order your groceries from The Green PolkaDot Box, they will donate up to 10% of your order’s value to DirectionFive! It’s organic and natural food, delivered to your door. Think Costco (membership fee, but much less expensive) but all non-GMO…’clean’ food. Just click on this link, sign up, place your order and type in our code so we can build D5! Easy! Our code is 98445.

We’re offering several programs at the Santa Rosa Parks and Recreation Department this summer.

Here’s the link for registration.

Cut and Paste this into your browser.

https://econnect.ci.santa-rosa.ca.us/Activities/ActivitiesAdvSearch.asp

We had such fun with these great kids. Can’t wait until the next class!