One way we ensure that we are fulfilling our mission is by reaching out to low-income families and individuals in our area. We realize that our model, unlike a soup kitchen, can be intimidating the first time someone orders a meal with the pay-what-you-can/volunteer concept, so we came up with our Community Partner Meal program to help introduce our program to low-income/food-insecure guests. By reaching out to other service providers that already serve low-income families and individuals, we can invite people in groups of 15-20 to come and enjoy a healthy meal for free. Then we explain our volunteer-for-a-meal program, our free workshops, and talk about the importance of healthy eating. We also explain that even if someone is unable to volunteer, there is always a good, healthy meal to be had at Take Root!