The Great Connector

The life-changing work of Epic-CureTM and their Sustain U program

by Angela Moonan, photography provided by Epic-Cure & Chef Barry Honan

There’s one thing about middle school that we know for sure. It’s not an easy age. When you put that against the backdrop of a pandemic well, it’s downright daunting. But over at the Boys & Girls Club and Woodlawn Terrace Apartments in West Saint Augustine, there’s joy and learning. Middle schoolers are cooking up some fun and firing up their cooking skills along with their confidence through a program from Epic-Cure called “Sustain U.”

Sunny Mulford is the Executive Director of Epic-Cure, a nonprofit organization that’s a distribution system and a driving force in the community. Feeding nearly 1,800 families across three counties weekly, families are able to put food on their table because of the work that Epic-Cure and over 1,000 volunteers are devoted to.

Access is the Key

Wasted

Thirty to forty percent of all of the food supply in the US goes to waste each year. One in six people don’t have any food to eat. Epic-Cure is being that connector. Food that would otherwise go to waste is being rescued from as far away as Orlando to right here in the St. Augustine area. Food is rescued from retail stores, wholesale outlets, and farms. “One evening over dinner with friends in September of 2018, I was talking about my daughter who has a Master’s in Sustainability. The documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste came up. A couple of weeks later I was on an airplane to visit my daughter and that documentary was being shown. It shared the story of how much food is wasted and how many people go hungry every day.” So, serendipity stepped in. “Epic-Cure did its first food distribution in May of 2019. That first year we rescued and distributed 350,000 pounds of food. Thanks to our invaluable partnership with the local chapter of Feeding America, today we’re rescuing and distributing 350,000 pounds of food a month!”

Epic-Cure does 16 distributions each week, but only 1 out of each of their warehouses. “Some people don’t have driver’s licenses, vehicles or money for gas. They may only have a bicycle. We strive to be accessible for everyone. We have to get the food to them. So we load our trucks with tents, tables and food and take them to different areas and make sure that access happens where it’s needed most. We have a zero threshold which means if you show up, you get food. There’s no requirement to show identification, no hoops to jump through. If you’re here, we provide free groceries to you.”

Success for Epic-Cure in 2022 would be growing their food distribution capabilities through their new, much larger warehouse in Palatka. Once it passes final inspection soon, it will allow them to double their food distribution to nearly 600,000 pounds a month this year. “Seventy-five percent of what we get in needs cold storage, and if you can’t store it properly, you can’t take it. You have to have massive coolers and freezers, tremendous infrastructure. We’ve built that infrastructure and are looking forward to using it to its full potential.”

Their goal is not only to increase their food distribution reach to over 4,000 families across St. John’s, Putnam, and Duval counties each week… But also to other food agencies including food pantries and soup

“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Meet Epic-Cure’s Board Members, from left to right:

Charity Hill Roberts, Wendy Lantz , Sunny Mulford, Ken Mulford, Hanna Layton, and Michele Evonne Anderson kitchens. They want to supply them with the resources they need to reach their maximum potential serving people experiencing need and then use zip codes data collection to understand where gaps in food availability occur, what the poverty and population ratios are in those areas and reach those through added mobile food distributions. Growth also looks like increasing student enrollment in their cooking program for middle-schoolers called Sustain U.

Wow, they really like it!

Growing Hearts, Growing Minds, Growing Bodies

Students in ‘Sustain U’ range in age from 12 to 15 years old. “We are a 100% volunteer organization so the teachers who teach our cooking classes are senior citizens (or guest chefs) who were either home cooks or involved in restaurants through the years. These volunteers, who’ve all gone through background checks in order to teach here, have the patience of grandparents with these kids, it’s wonderful! We’d love to see our program grow to 50 students this year,” says Sunny.

This kind of enrollment growth will be a matter of staffing up. Sunny and her team work to have three teachers to every five students because they want a quality learning experience for each student. The students create a meal in class. Then when they go home they take that meal with them to feed their families. Epic-Cure gives them groceries, they give them the equipment if necessary. For example, if a student needs a waffle iron or a mixer to make something for their family, that’s what they get… and they get to keep it forever. The students are learning basic life skills, confidence, and building their resumes. They’re learning they could even carve out a career path for themselves to work with a local restaurant as they get older. Maybe they’ll have the skills to start right out in the kitchen. The kids get to learn about all types of food and vegetables and what good nutrition looks and tastes like. “Recently we did some grilled, marinated artichokes with the kids and every one of them thought they’d hate it. They loved it! The thought of eating herb chicken cutlets with mustard sauce makes the kids’ faces grimace. Using dill and fresh mint, they think they could never possibly like it and then they taste it and they’re so excited! So, they’re learning so much about the possibilities of food and flavors. Success for us is when those students get older and they walk into a grocery store they know what to do with everything in that store. They know how to use the produce that is in season to save money and really maximize food for themselves and their families.

Sunny shared a recent quote from a young student who said “I love learning to cook! If someone gets sick and my family I can help take care of them the way they take care of me!” “That’s what this really is about for the students, '' says Sunny. “They’re so proud to take home what they’ve made. It gives them such a sense of accomplishment to contribute directly to their family at what is otherwise a difficult age to feel like you’re able to contribute to your family. That’s really where the magic lies.”

If you’d like to get involved with Epic-Cure, to either donate or volunteer, please visit Epic-Cure.org and be sure you’re ready to cook up some magic! Chef Barry Honan, who’s own story was featured in our Inaugural issue of Loving Our Food, is a guest chef instructor with Epic-Czure. “It’s an honor to collaborate with Epic-Cure. Sustain U teaches students an essential life skill. It’s a gateway to understanding food, traditions, and therefore world cultures.” n