Mixing Up Food and Fun with Whole Foods Tempe

Do you remember your first green smoothie?! That healthy blend of fruit and vegetables that looks…sometimes less than appetizing? Last week, four volunteers from Whole Foods Tempe visited our clubhouse and helped ten of the youth in our Friends – Phoenix program mix up some smoothies and other healthy treats. Some were brave and tried the strange-looking green mixture with mixed results but big smiles. Others preferred to observe, eyes wide at the amount of spinach going into their friends’ cups!

Nearly all the youth enjoyed one of the other stations in the clubhouse – making apple donuts! Volunteers helped them choose from a variety of toppings to put on a round slice of apple, some using real creativity to make beautiful designs and others by their own admission just trying to fit as many yummy toppings on one slice as possible!

There was also a table full of fun crafts and volunteers also led a game where youth guessed how much sugar was in different kinds of popular drinks. Youth were surprised by some of the answers and there was plenty of laughter heard throughout the clubhouse while they tried to work out which drink had the most sugar out of them all.

Thank you to all of the volunteers from Whole Foods Tempe for leading such a fun and informative event for the youth in our program – and our Friends and staff, too! We want to say a special thanks to Fred Simon at Whole Foods Tempe for all of his coordination efforts, and to Ashley, Jackie, Christina, and Andrew on our Friends – Phoenix team for their collective brainstorming and ideas for this fun day.