The Mid-Ohio Foodbank and the Central Ohio Restaurant Association (CORA) have partnered for several years to work together to fight hunger. The concept is simple. The restaurants commit to donate 5% of sales to the Foodbank on a set day, you eat and the Mid-Ohio Foodbank gets more funds to do good things in our community. This is called Food Fight!

This year working with CORA and Columbus State Community College (CSCC) several of our local food trucks are getting on board to join the cause with a special preliminary round of the fight on June 25th.

CSCC will host several food trucks on their campus from 10 am to 6 pm to feed all diners – students, staff, downtown workers and residents as well as anyone that would like to drop by. The trucks will be set up at the intersection of Cleveland Ave. and Mt Vernon Ave.

Please share this with anyone you would know that is interested.

To learn more:
Mid-Ohio Foodbank

Thank to the many in the community that have partnered to make this event possible including:

CORA, CSCC, 614 Magazine, CD102.5, NBC4 and Yelp as well as our food truck community.

The Women’s Business Center at ECDI invites all to come with family and friends to celebrate Women’s Day on June 22nd from 11 am to 4:00 pm.

The event will be held on the ECDI Campus at 1655 Old Leonard Ave.

The day will feature family friendly activities, mobile food vendors including Pitabilities and Dan’s Deli 41, an e-waste recycling drive from 10 am to 2 pm, live music and guest speakers. Liz Lessner from Columbus Food League (Betty’s, Tip Top, Jury Room, Dirty Frank’s, Grass Skirt Tiki Room, Surly Girl Saloon) and Eartha Recycling will be a featured speaker at the conclusion of the day.

Speaker and event schedule is listed below:

Speaker Schedule

11:15 – 12:00 p.m.
Jacqueline Holland, RN, CRNP, WHNP- Program Manager, Diversity
Diversity Enhancement Program at the James Cancer Clinic
Health and Balance in Our Lives

12:15 – 12:45 p.m.
Dress for Success –“What not to Wear” Presentation and Make-over”

12:30 – 1:00 p.m.
Catfish Lily – Live Music

1:00 – 1:45 p.m.
TaKeysha S. Cheney, Founder, CEO and Publisher of The Women’s Book
The Importance of Making Connections

2:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Dress for Success- “What not to Wear” Presentation and Make-over”

2:15 – 2:45 p.m.
Catfish Lily – Live Music

2:45 – 3:30 p.m.
Liz Lessner, CEO and President of Betty’s Family of Restaurants
The Dream, the Vision, the Budget

RecycleForce Columbus

Donate your old computers, TVs & almost anything with a cord and put
individuals with barriers to employment to work!

What is e-Waste?

Unwanted consumer and business electronic products nearing the
end of their useful life are called e-Waste or e-scrap (computers, game systems, phones, etc.)

A $5 donation/disposal fee is required for computer monitors up TVs up to 27”
and $10 donation for TVs larger than 27”.

What inspired you to start J Pops?

I was living in Atlanta and began to see a trend of gourmet ice pops. I thought it was a great idea and started to play around in the kitchen creating different flavors. But it wasn’t until the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan that I decided to make them for real. I had lived in Japan for over 2 years as an English teacher and I fell in love with the country and it’s culture. I felt so hopeless and wanted to do something to help out. I decided to sell the pops to my co-workers and sent all the money raised to the American Red Cross for Japan Relief. Then after much encouragement from my boss I decided I would go into business officially once I moved back to Columbus to be closer to my family.

What inspires your flavor creations?

I get inspired from a variety of things. Sometimes it is as simple as walking around the farmers market or supermarket and seeing what is in season. I then think about what I could pair with that fruit or herb. I also get suggestions from friends.

What is your biggest flavor fail so far?

Well, there have been several. Sometimes it takes 5 or 6 attempts before I get it right. But, the biggest fail I can recall was Caramel Apple. The first attempt was awful! There was also cereal milk. That one didn’t even make it to my taste testers.

Where can people find your pops and your cart?

J-POPS are sold at The Hills Market Downtown and at Celebrate Local in Easton. You can find my cart at Pearl Market on Tuesday and Friday. Easton Farmers Market on Thursday and Worthington Farmers Market on selected Saturdays. Sometimes I pop up in Bexley by Capital University on selected Wednesdays. I will also be at various festivals this summer including Pride Fest and ComFest. The best way to find out where I am going to be is to follow me on Twitter and like me on Facebook: myjpops

What did you do to prepare for starting your business?

A lot of research. It was a challenge since I initially I did not have a mentor. I enrolled in classes at the SBDC here in Columbus and was very lucky to get Ariana, my business advisor. She was such a big help in being so supportive and helping guide me along the way to what I needed to do. I honestly had no clue about all that it was going to take to get the business up and running. Between all the licenses and all the regulations it can be very overwhelming. Bob Kramer from the Food Fort helped me with questions about licenses and permits. Everyday is still a learning experience.

What was the biggest obstacle you needed to overcome to get started?

There were so many! It was a challenge finding the cart and molds that I wanted and that took a long time. Besides finding the core items the other obstacle was finding a mentor.

Any advice for new food business owners?

Do your homework. Take advantage of any free resources you can find. Sometimes the best ones are the people near you . Realize that it will take time to get things up and going. I try to look at everything as challenges and not obstacles. There were so many times I wanted to just give up because I thought it would never happen because as soon as I took one foot forward, I would get pushed back two more. It is a lot of work so you really have to want to do it and believe in your product.

Join some of your favorite Food Fort mobile vendors and others for a break from the grill Memorial Day weekend. In addition to food, there will be live music, childrens activities, corn hole, indoor seating and access to the gigantic inside kid’s play area at “The Naz” which puts some amusement parks to shame.

Food Trucks confirmed so far include:
Burrito Bus
Dos Hermanos
Cheesy Truck
Pitabilities
Pizza Cottage
OH! Burgers
with a few more to confirm.

This is the first event food truck event in Grove City. There is plemty of free parking and room to eat inside or outside.

For additional details. See our listing on Facebook as well as the website listing on the Grove City Church of the Nazarre (The hosts of the event) website

Each truck will be making a donation to Refuge for Women, an area charity.

This is the “field report” from Kelly.

The IT BA and PM team had a team building event. We took over commercial kitchen space at the Food Fort to organize into teams and bake four different, multi-step items within a set period of time. As a twist, each team had varying levels of “requirements” with their recipes. We learned some things about baking, about how we work together, about different kinds of requirements and decision-making, and we enjoyed some delicious treats!

(There were caveman sugar cookies, compliments of Blind Mice Bakery in the Lavender Lounge this morning.) 

Team Three Blind Mice (AKA Blind Mice Bakery) and their Koulourakia/Halal/Caveman Sugar Cookies

Team Tart (Sweet, Savory, and Pop) with sweet blueberry tarts and savory cheese and tomato tarts

The Pipers and their cream cheese filled chocolate cupcakes

Team Puff and their Cream Puffs

Enjoying treats!

We had great time!!!

After the training session, the community development workers at Homeport will be teaching the curriculum in the community. Homeport is a non-profit organization that offers safe and affordable housing in various neighborhoods of Columbus. In addition, they lead community groups for a wide range of age groups that focus on increasing financial literacy and development of various life skills. They plan to incorporate the Pantry Panic curriculum into some of their community groups now that they’ve gone through the training to teach the class.

The training class was highly successful in terms of how much we all learned, but it was also a lot of fun! On the last day of Pantry Panic, participants receive a mystery box with a variety of produce, either meat or beans for their protein, and rice or pasta. They are then to create a casserole that incorporates all of their ingredients and using a very basic recipe. This recipe as well as the others in the curriculum focus on making a meal based on what’s in the pantry rather than relying on extra trips to the grocery store to fill in the gaps.

The flurry of activity in the kitchen resulted in a wide variety of casseroles. For example, one group made a vegan sweet-and-sour dish, while another incorporated a white sauce they made earlier that day for an Italian fair. At the end of the training session, all the groups had a chance to try out any or all of the casseroles.

We look forward to assisting them in any way we can so that Pantry Panic can reach their communities. Our partners at MidOhio Foodbank and Homeport were wonderful to work with–we can’t thank them enough for their hard work they do in Columbus, Ohio.

(Note: This post was by Lydia Whittington, whose last day at Food Fort was May 3rd, Thank you Lydia for your hard work!).

Today Wendy from the farm came to make her last pick up for the season and it was our heaviest load to date. It was filled with beans, tortillas, bread, apple cores, vegetable cuttings, donuts and more. Wendy shared that the pigs know when a barrel comes back from the Food Fort. The pigs get excited because they know it will soon be time to eat like gourmets for the day. We appreciated the opportunity to put our waste to good use for the winter. We will look for other sustainable uses for our leftovers for the rest of the year.

Brian Thornton from OH! Burgers had the transmission die on his food truck. It would take $2500 and three or more days to fix the problem. In the meantime, the key to have a profitable mobile food business is to have the ability to…..move. We thought of some different solutions: attaching a horse or mule team to the truck, borrowing another truck or sitting on the curb despondent about three days of lost business.

In a short time better plans came together.

Here is the recipe for getting Brian on the road.

Brian borrowed the Kenny’s Meat Wagon cart from Ken Donnelly and was loaned an SUV with a towing hitch by Alex from Tatoheads.

For Friday, Laura Lee of Ajumama opted not to take the day off and instead partnered with Brian to do a pop-up combo on her truck. The two partnered with special items from the Ajumama menu and select items from OH! Burgers, so the two could work together to have Aju-Burgers / OH!Jumama set up for lunch at an OSU medical facility. (Please note the infamous, MikeGuyver, in the background of the shot with a thumbs up).

Friday night, Brian picked up his truck at 5:00 pm and raced to the Instaband Battle of Bands Competition with his repaired OH! Burgers truck but had a back up plan of borrowing the Kenny’s Meat Wagon Cart or having another member sub for him. Kenny worked the truck with Brian to complete the circle.

Cooking Classes with Sass

at the Fort.

Please pass along the link below to all of your friends and contacts!

One of the primary missions of the JobRaising Challenge is to tap into the job-creating potential of nonprofits to raise money, awareness, and help put Americans back to work.

That is what we do.

How do we do this? We do this by investing in a job a day and a business a week.

How can you help us? Donate!

Follow this link to our direct ECDI page.

Every donation brings ECDI that much closer to bringing the $150,000 grand prize home to the state of Ohio where we will invest, educate, and innovate with the businesses and people we inspire.

Thank you in advance for your continued support of ECDI and our programs!