The East Side Table sprouted out of the desire to nourish the East Side of St. Paul and it’s residents. After overwhelming evidence showed a lack of access to, and knowledge surrounding healthy eating and food skills in our neighborhoods, a collaborative project led by HealthEast was launched to bring these solutions to the health and nutrition challenges of the East Side.
With the support of the amazing St. Paul community, a working council was formed comprised of 13 local organizations all with the same goal in mind; to nourish our neighborhoods. After nine months of meeting and brainstorming prominent challenges and barriers, the collaborative identified health and well-being needs in the community and formed a game plan, sure to accommodate everyone with these needs.
The cornerstone of the East Side Table is to celebrate the colorful community and the diversity it contains, meaning that all programs also celebrate and accommodate the cultures of our neighborhoods. Dayton’s Bluff, Payne-Phaelen and the Greater East Side are buzzing with ethnic, cultural, and linguistic variety, and the East Side Table partner agencies have been able to offer guidance and accommodations for all of these groups. If you haven’t already noticed, our website is even in several different languages! (See toggle bar at the top of the page.)
Whether it is through our meal kit program, community events, or our amazing food skills resources, we hope to touch every single one of our community members in some way. By coming together we can celebrate culture, create relationships, nourish our bodies, and nourish our souls along the way. Through this program, we hope to bring families together over healthy meals at their own table, and community members together over meals at ours. There is a seat for everyone… let’s grow together.