To the Editor: Praise for Pi Day
Thanks to Mimi Omiecinski and her steadfast community-building efforts, Pi Day, with its Einstein look-alike contest and family-friendly fun, has become an annual frolic in our community. A less visible benefit is the partnership that Pi Day has fostered between owners of two iconic institutions that enables food systems literacy programs for students at Princeton Public Schools.
Each year, proprietors Jen Carson of Lillipies bakery and Gab Carbone (and co-founder and business partner Matt Errico) of the bent spoon ice cream parlor create a Pi Day Sundae sold only during the days surrounding 3.14. This year, they created cherry Lillipies with choice of ice cream at the bent spoon on Palmer Square, and brownie Lillipies with mascarpone ice cream at Lillipies, at the Princeton Shopping Center.
These entrepreneurs donate 100 percent of these proceeds to our K-12 projects that use seasonal, local foods to illustrate and amplify curriculum, to improve school meals, to connect students to campus lands, and to recognize and celebrate the diverse student population.
But that’s just the annual capstone. Their generosity of spirit carries on through the year and through the years, making the impossible happen, little by little:
Jen shows up at the district’s Teaching Kitchens to teach the chemistry of bread and pastry as backdrop for ingredients from Princeton Middle School’s Edible Gardens. She regularly hosts students in Lillipies’ kitchens for workshops on off-hours. Before she opened her bakery, she was among chefs for our ongoing after-school seed to table program, PPS Cooks+Gardens, at our town’s only Teaching Kitchens (at Princeton Middle School). There, she worked alongside the Edible Gardens Educator/Steward, providing students with hands-on, five-senses skills in growing a salad, reading a label, setting a table, and cooking for themselves and their classmates.
Since 2006, the bent spoon has partnered with another Princeton institution, the Whole Earth Center, making a monthly custom ice cream with seasonal ingredients from local artisan producers, from Terhune Orchards (think apple and caramel) to mint from the students’ own Edible Gardens at each of the school campuses.
The bent spoon and Whole Earth Center donate all proceeds of those sales to our Garden State on Your Plate program, which spotlights seasonal, local produce items and growers and restaurateurs and chefs who use them — and is the tip of the spear for all our nonprofit’s food systems literacy work.
This steady funding, coupled with grants bestowed by employees of Church & Dwight, has enabled the hiring of the district’s first Food Systems Literacy coordinator, Tomia MacQueen, supervised by Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson. Tomia, charged with working behind the scenes, has succeeded in having each month’s Garden State on Your Plate produce item included in school lunches at least once a week!
The Garden State on Your Plate program, with its collection of posters created by Fran McManus, one of our co-founders, offers myriad opportunities for faculty to integrate school meals and campus lands (where all the starring produce items are grown each year) into curriculum.
Lillipies, the bent spoon, and Whole Earth Center are three pillars in the village it takes to support this work.
We are so grateful.
Karla Cook
Co-Founder and Board Chair, Princeton School Gardens Cooperative, Inc.
Friends of Princeton Open Space Offers Photo Contest
Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS), a nonprofit devoted to land preservation and stewardship in Princeton, announced its 2024 photo contest, Perspectives on Preservation, sponsored by REI Co-op Princeton.
Now in its ninth year, the annual contest originally coincided with REI’s Opt Outside campaign, which encourages people to skip the mall on the day after Thanksgiving and spend the day outdoors instead. Now accepting photos taken in any season, the Perspectives on Preservation photo contest continues to be sponsored by REI Co-op Princeton and encourages photographers to explore the Mountain Lakes Open Space Area all year round.
“We’re grateful for the continued support we receive from our friends at REI Co-op Princeton,” says Fran McManus, photo contest co-coordinator and longtime FOPOS board member. “REI recognizes the importance of time spent outdoors, especially its benefits to our health and well-being. We couldn’t agree more.”
Each year, photo entries showcase the diverse forms of beauty photographers find in and around the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve. The contest builds awareness of the Preserve’s role in protecting biodiversity and enhancing the quality of life in the Princeton community.
“Our goal is to encourage residents to explore the natural world more deeply and for us to learn what our community loves and values most about the Mountain Lakes Preserve,” McManus says.
Adult photographers (17 and over) are invited to submit up to three photographs of the Mountain Lakes Open Space Area, which comprises the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve, Mountain Lakes North, John Witherspoon Woods, Community Park North, Tusculum Preserve, Pettoranello Gardens, and the J. Seward Johnson, Sr. Trail & Boardwalk. Student photographers (16 and under) are also invited to compete in the contest to win gift cards from Princeton-based businesses: jaZams, LiLLiPiES, and the bent spoon.
Photos for submission can be taken at any time of year during the past three years as long as they have not been submitted in a previous FOPOS photo contest. There is no entry fee.
Entries will be judged on their aesthetic merit, creativity, and originality and how they help to celebrate the Mountain Lakes Open Space Area as a refuge for nature and visitors. One winning photograph will be chosen in each of the three categories and the photographers will receive a $100 gift card to REI Co-op. In addition to the winning photographs, approximately twenty photos from the submissions will be selected for FOPOS’s annual photo exhibition in December 2024.
Entries must be submitted by midnight on Sunday, September 8, 2024. For contest details, rules, categories, and age ranges, visit fopos.org or email photos@fopos.org.
