|
Our Story
 Thrive Caf� started five years ago, by Chef Wendy Armstrong, as the first, and still only, Green Certified Restaurant in Savannah, GA. As a Green Certified Restaurant, we work with over 20 local farms and use eco-friendly methods, in all of our daily business practices.
Thrive excels in six categories designated by the Green Restaurant Association: water efficiency, waste reduction, recycling, sustainable food, energy, disposables and pollution reduction. Overall, we offer fresh, convenient and healthy dishes, at a reasonable price, to our daily clientele. We also provide vibrant, local flavor to the events we cater, particularly weddings.
The Thrive team also loves to be involved with the community, environment and education. We have participated in many local events and community groups: SCAD Design Department, Armstrong Atlantic University, Wormsloe Foundation, Earth Day, Food Day Festival, Fleetfeet Marathon Runners, Oatland Island Wildlife Center, Riverkeepers, Skidaway Island Institute, CLEAN Diet Program, Trustees Garden, Forsyth Park Farmers' Market and Gulfsteam Green Boot Camp (and that's just to name a few). We even launched our own educational and interactive Sustainable Dinner Series in summer of 2012.
Our Announcement
Now, an even more exciting opportunity has been presented! St. Andrews School, on Wilmington Island, reached out to Thrive, asking us to provide a healthier lunch, for their students. Fed up with the traditional institutional provider, this progressive independent private school (grades K-12) is partnering up, not with a corporation, but an entrepreneur, with just the parameters that Thrive offers: healthy, local, eco-friendly and real.
It is a challenge to fit a healthier lunch into a tiny school lunch budget. Being a private school, St. Andrews is not eligible for government subsidies (which are unhealthy anyway). Therefore, Chef Wendy and the Thrive team are willing to step up to help make it better.
There are still a few pieces to fit into place, specifically equipment, as the previous company took some of that with them. Plus, a few key pieces will help incorporate more "from scratch" real and local ingredients, into the school lunches.
We Need your help!
Fundraiser! We are looking to raise a sum of $$ to purchase a POS accounting system, a hot holding unit, a food processor, steamer and smallwares (pots, pans, ets), and also a few other startup items. St. Andrews and Thrive are contributing what they can, of course, and will also be looking for deals and checking out auctions. But, we are also reaching out to our Thrive and St. Andrews fan base and other like-minded friends, in the community, to help get the ball rolling.
Not only does Thrive plan on serving up healthier lunches (which is such a hot topic now nationally!), we would like to revitalize the school garden and integrate it into the kids' lessons. We want to involve the kids in nutrition, cooking techniques and encourage them to try new things, while still making the food kid-friendly. Lunch items can pair up with other lesson plans (like geography, for example). We will also bring in our local farmers to meet the students and teach them green practices. It's all interconnected.
Does it occur to you that when this model works, there will be fewer excuses to why schools still serve poor school lunches, anywhere? Or for grownups? If Thrive can do it, anyone can do it. Onwards and upwards!
|
