In a Bog With Martha Stewart

Posted by Pat Nicklin on Monday, November 22, 2010

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Pat Nicklin in a cranberry bog with kids & Martha Stewart Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign will be featured on the Tuesday, November 23rd airing of The Martha Stewart Show. Check the Hallmark Channel’s Website for the station number in your area and tune in!

My mother would tell you that I’m not the handiest person when it comes to “homemaking.” So spending the day with Martha Stewart and our corporate partner Ocean Spray to celebrate No Kid Hungry made me a bit nervous. I think I’m better, however, at wading through a cranberry bog and eating a Martha-style meal with a bunch of incredible New York City school kids.

Ocean Spray brought in trucks of cranberries and three of their cranberry farmers to create a bog in the center of Rockefeller Center. Martha’s crew then set a table for 50 in the center of the bog, complete with gorgeous turkey centerpieces and plates filled with the best Thanksgiving dinner I’ve ever had. (I have just this morning purchased Martha Stewart Living magazine and will try my best to cook some of the recipes for my understanding family.)

We were surrounded by glorious tall New York City skyscrapers and ate our meal in front of hundreds of curious New Yorkers, press, and the Ocean Spray team. The whole shebang will appear on Martha’s show and the Hallmark Channel on November 23.

With the help of City Harvest and the American Federation of Teachers, Kelly and Bekah on the Share Our Strength team had recruited kids from three elementary schools and two shelters to join us for dinner. In my years at Share Our Strength (and as the mother of an active and impatient kid), I have never met such well-behaved and mature children. They put on their waders, sat at the table, and waited with me for a couple of hours until Martha arrived. Jemale told me about how she loves to do crafts; Jerome was the comedian, who kept the table entertained with a lecture on why he doesn’t like Justin Bieber (the girls did protest). What I didn’t realize is that the kids actually thought I WAS Martha (well, we ARE older white ladies with blonde hair and a tendency towards conservative dress). When I told them I actually worked for an organization that fights childhood hunger, I think they actually liked that better!

The real purpose of the day was not really just to get press for Share Our Strength, or impress the celebrity followers in the crowd. It was, instead, to tell the world that “every kid should have a seat at the table.” Little Tyree next to me asked for two plates, and cleaned them both. We need to tell the world that kids like her deserve not just one great Thanksgiving dinner, but dinner everyday. And we won’t stop until there is No Kid Hungry.

Leah Chase