By Adrienne Smith
This holiday season, Nextdoorganics and Snowday Food Truck are joining forces to help you shop small.
On Monday, December 8, our holiday market will bring our small-batch food and craft makers together for an evening of fun, gift selecting and maple syrup infused treats. Stop in to to pick up small-batch Sriracha, pumpkin butter, local honey, chai tea and much more.
Plus, get a free gift bag and twine to make a nice gift package for your loved ones this holiday season.
Date: Monday December 8, 7-9pm
Location: Nextdoorganics Brooklyn Hub, 360 Throop Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11221
Co-host Snowday Food Truck, operated by Drive Change, will be outside serving up maple syrup-y treats. We spoke with founder Jordyn Lexton about Snowday's unique mission, its menu and its snow machine.
Related: Sign up for Nextdoorganics for weekly packages of fresh, local produce.
Getting To Know Snowday Food Truck
What is the Snowday Truck?
Snowday is the best new food truck in NYC and the winner of the 2014 Vendy Award for Rookie of the Year.
The Snowday Truck is the first food truck built and operated by Drive Change. Drive Change is a food truck social enterprise that hires, trains and empowers formerly incarcerated youth ages 16-25.
We launched Snowday Food Truck in April 2014 with an inaugural class of eight young men.
What dishes does the truck serves?
Snowday is a farm-to-truck food truck and it serves a French-Canadian style menu. Maple syrup is our central ingredient. You can find it in everything we serve, from our award-winning maple grilled cheese to our maple fried brussels sprouts with maple smoked rib to our quinoa salad with maple dijon dressing.
What food will you be serving at the holiday market?
Our famous maple grilled cheese.
The truck actually has a snow machine! What does it do?
It makes sugar on snow! Hot maple syrup is poured over fresh snow or shaved ice - when the maple hits the snow it seizes up and becomes chewy, like a fresh taffy.
How can people find Snowday?
The best way to find the truck is by following us on twitter @snowdaytruck.
Both the Snowday food truck and menu is sustainable. How and why?
Our main mission is to broaden access to opportunity for young people coming home from adult jail and prison. However, as a small food business built around core values of integrity, we are conscious of our waste and our impact on food systems. We source 90% of our menu from Upstate NY farms and we think about menu items that can last in storage and/or get repurposed into future items on the truck (i.e. make maple bread pudding out of the ends of our sourdough bread or maple panzanella salad).
The truck is sustainable in a couple of ways. 1) The wood material used to make the outside of the truck is a recycled water tank that was found after Hurricane Sandy 2) All sales from the truck recycle back into the organization to subsidize our program costs - we are not entirely self-sustaining at the moment (we do rely on individual donors, grants and foundations to make up the difference) but we recognize great value in striving toward self sustainability.
Where does Snowday's maple syrup come from?
Upstate NY farms, most frequently it comes from Roxbury Farms.
Related: Learn about where Nextdoorganics' food comes from.
How is Drive Change (and Snowday) helping young people leaving the adult criminal system?
Drive Change has impact on the lives of young people directly because the truck (hopefully one day trucks) run by Drive Change provide employment to formerly incarcerated youth. Further, we use the food truck business as a tool to teach transferable skills in the areas of social media, marketing, money management, hospitality, small business development and culinary arts.
Beyond employment and newly acquired skills, Drive Change provides a new community for young people returning home. In addition to these gains, Drive Change is contributing to criminal justice reform because we are connecting with the community, talking about injustice and through the process the stigma associated with formerly incarcerated young people dispels. The human connection of the food truck world makes a great impact on customers and our staff.
What made you decide to launch Drive Change?
I was a teacher on Rikers Island for three years (working for adolescent incarcerated young men) and I witnessed the injustice and cruelty of the system first hand. NY is one of two states that automatically arrests 16 year olds like they are adults - this is nuts. It means more kids leave with criminal convictions (open records) instead of juvenile adjudications (sealed). Future employment, educational opportunities and public services are closed off to these young people. I saw way too many of my students, full of potential and the desire to live crime-free, bright futures return to jail. I decided to start Drive Change as a way to get the word out about injustice and directly support the re-entry needs of my former students.
[mc4wp_form]