Some of the greatest Twin Cities culinary talents are reimagining “school lunch” for the annual philanthropic event.
Graze 4 Good is an annual dinner put on by Fourth Generation, a philanthropic membership-based organization run by the Minneapolis Foundation. Members participate in monthly events, learning about philanthropy and crucial community issues. Since 2010, the organization has raised close to half a million dollars for various social issues. The annual Graze 4 Good event raises funds for a specific social issue, voted on by its members, while highlighting the skills of local chefs. Fourth Generation’s Co-chair, Grace Rose, says this year’s fundraiser is supporting eight organizations that focus on education equity.
“And those grantees really tackle education equity at a lot of different vantage points. Some are really investing in educators, some are investing in women, some are investing in really young kids, bringing books and diverse authors into the classroom,” said Rose. “Some are investing in teens and helping people build support systems outside of the classroom.”
Rose says over the past year members of Fourth Generation have studied how education inequity shows up in communities.
“Unfortunately, Minnesota has some of the widest racial equity gaps when it comes to education achievement,” said Rose. “That gave us a lot of motivation to tackle and learn about it ourselves. Because as much as we're giving and trying to pull our giving dollars, we're also learning about these issues from community experts, from people who are doing work in this field, who are educators or advocates or policy makers. So that's something that also influences our mission topic each year.”
This year’s Graze 4 Good theme is “lunchroom,” featuring nostalgic school lunch inspired cuisine from acclaimed local chefs Robert Gerken, Gustavo & Kate Romero, Ann Ahmed, Christina Nguyen, Nettie Colon, and Alex Althoff.
“Food is something that can really be used to bring people together,” said Rose. “There's a lot of different ways to celebrate local businesses and local entrepreneurs in our community, which are thriving. And so Graze 4 Good is really an opportunity for us to celebrate their work, but also bring people together in really delicious and fun ways.”
Graze 4 Good takes place on April 30th, from 6-9pm, at St Paul College.