Pilot Light Takes Pup-Up Videos to TV
Food education nonprofit partner with public tv in Chicago on animated shorts
Pilot Light Food Ed Nonprofit Launches TV Videos
“Food Matters” series of 1-minute learning experiences runs on WTTW
I believe strongly that the cause of building a better food system is advanced by instilling Good Food values in our youngest eaters. That said, Local Food Forum may not be the best learning vehicle for the 6-and-under set.
Fortunately, our friends at Pilot Light — a Chicago food education nonprofit — have a better idea. In partnership with Chicago public television station WTTW, and with grant funding from Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters program, Pilot Light today is launching a series of seven one-minute animated shorts aimed at teaching little ones the basics about the food they eat.
Starring Pilot Light canine mascot Puprika (seen in the production still above), the videos will be interspersed with WTTW Kids programming. A new video will run each week through mid-November, and the shorts are filled with cartoon people, produce, farm animals and prepared foods like pasta and pizza. A cartoon sun makes an appearance in the Week 3 video about how food grows.
The videos are also posted on WTTW’s website.
Each episode is based on one of Pilot Light’s Food Education Standards, which were published in 2018 to define holistic food education for classroom teachers. According to the organization, “the Standards illustrate how food connects us and has an impact on our culture, relationships, history, and environment — a concept that is deeply ingrained in Pilot Light’s mission.”
The Food Matters series is a rarity in the world of nonprofit fundraising, in which a rejected grant application is usually final. Pilot Light Executive Director Alexandra (Alex) DeSorbo-Quinn told me that she and her team were bullish on the project and thus were disappointed when their initial application to Cooking Matters was rejected.
But she said they circled back: “A couple months later, we get a note from Cooking Matters and they said, ‘The opportunity didn't really fit for the grant in terms of what we were looking for, but we're so excited about this that we want to fund it anyway, and we want to be partners with you on this.’”
The series took shape after Pilot Light connected with WTTW, with an assist from David Manilow, the producer of Check, Please!, a longtime hit show on the station on which diners from all walks reviewed their favorite Chicago-area restaurants. Below are excerpts from my interview with Alex, picking up from that point.
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A: So we had the funding, we had the airtime and, from there, we went to one of my former colleagues in New York, who wants to go by his stage name, which is William Electric Black, but his real name is Ian James… He’s doing lots of educational content for young kids that focuses on social issues like gun violence, focuses on health education. He makes it family-friendly. He makes it simple and easy to understand, but most importantly, makes it fun…
So we have seven weeks’ worth of each week a new video airing on WTTW, and we're also working in direct partnership with Pre-K and kindergarten teachers in Chicago or in the Chicago area to get feedback from parents and families on their experience watching the videos at home and what they learned and things like that.
Q: I'm certainly old enough that I remember the pre-PBS days when it was called Educational Television.
A: As you were talking. I was reminded of Pilot Light’s model of partnering directly with teachers to integrate into core curriculum, which is an approach that is really in a lot of ways democratizes food education. It's an avenue to provide many, many students, many families with food education in a way that it's not already being provided in an equitable way across communities throughout the country…
I have three young children… [WTTW] is one of the few channels, few venues for video content for children that we trust our house. You turn it on and you know it’s good, you know it's educational content, you know it's quality content. So just having Pilot Light aligned with a brand and a mission like WTTW is really exciting.
Q: Because of your approach, it seems there's a real synergy to the goals of public television. Because as you say, it's about integrating food into the curriculum… It’s important for children to learn that food isn't just what you do a few times a day to fill your belly and keep yourself nourished. It's economics and it’s environment and it’s history and it’s sociology.
A: That's what we see coming to life in classrooms with teachers providing students with opportunities to build relationships and to learn about each other through food and show, we all eat, let's better understand each other through that lens and learn about each other's culture and history and identity… The first video, it's based around our first food education standard, which is that food connects us to each other, and it's all about pasta around the world. Everybody eats pasta, it might not be the same shape or in the same way, but it's a connection point.
Q: Some people might ask, what can you really do a one-minute video? But if it's done in an impactful way that lights up people's eyes. A good example was the Chipotle “back to the start” ad a few years ago that depicted a livestock farmer rebelling against industrialized agriculture, which was an eye-opener for a lot of people.
A: Each video is where food comes from, how it's grown, how our choices are impacting our bodies and our communities. Even though these are these videos are designed for very young children, at that age they can still appreciate it. That’s the age for they're just super curious, especially once they hit 4, 5, 6 and ask me lots of questions. We're excited to hear from families what questions and what experiences grow out of those videos and having this food thought series serve as a foundation for that conversation and dialogue at home.
Q: A lot of us share the philosophy that the fastest way to get to a food system that's better for people, better for the planet, better for animals is to instill these values in our youngest eaters. And you’ve seen and all the other programs that are involved in early childhood education have seen that children learn these things and they take these lessons home.
A: It's tough to reach folks once they're working and they're busy. I think when a child comes home and says to their parent, “I want to watch this or I want to share something with you, I want to tell you something, I want to try this,” they listen. So it's a combination of both young people learning important information that will shape, hopefully, a lifetime of decisions and actions and advocacy. But it's also that early communication and that teaching, of the child teaching the parent and in bringing them in and saying, “You know, I care about this.” If it's a child, it's really powerful. That parent is going to want to sit and learn more. So it's exciting in a lot of ways.
Editor Note: Alex and I also discussed Pilot Light’s other plans for upcoming programming, which will be the subject of an additional article soon.