Food brings community together and community is what OneCranston Health Equity Zone (HEZ) is all about. The organization is currently creating a Cranston cookbook to showcase and celebrate residents’ family traditions and cultures; individuals may submit a recipe and provide a backstory to the food they selected.

This initiative blossomed out of OneCranston HEZ’s free farmers markets for Cranston residents. Once a week from July through September, individuals could stop by the Bain Middle School track and pick up fresh, locally-grown produce. The organization noticed that many people would ask what they could make with the ingredients they selected at the market. The organization started implementing cooking demos at the market, but thought a cookbook could also be beneficial.

The cookbook’s categories will be determined by the recipes OneCranston HEZ receives. The cookbook could potentially be divided by Cranston’s regions or the standard way – such as appetizers, breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.

OneCranston HEZ Initiative Director Sarah Cote said the project is a combined initiative between the organization’s Physical Health & Nutrition and Community Connectors workgroups. While OneCranston HEZ has five workgroups made up of Cranston residents and stakeholders, Cote said it’s not typical that these subcommittees collaborate – which makes this initiative exciting.

Annette Bourne, who is co-chair of Community Connectors along with Grace Swinski, said it’s fascinating to learn how one particular food can be used throughout cultures. For instance, salt – which is one of the oldest ingredients – can be used in different ways such as salting meats or used in soups.

“So you might see an item in the cookbook near and dear to the heart but see it used in a different way,” said Bourne.

In Cranston, there’s a diverse range of individuals and Bourne loves the idea of how people take traditional recipes, add their own ingredients and bring recipes forward from their own lives.

Swinski, who also co-chairs Physical Health and Nutrition with Savun Daniels, reflected on how in her own household, family recipes have been passed down and have become part of history – such as her husband and daughter making perogies.

The cookbook is meant to build community and embrace diversity. One of OneCranston HEZ’s goals is to devise different activities to emphasize how the diversity of Cranston is a strength of the city. Skwinki said she wants people to realize the great cultures within the city and celebrate them while also reading a history of a recipe and if people changed it and why.

“And it’s just to get to know other people in the city better,” said Swinski.

The cookbooks will be free and the organization plans to hand them out at a potluck at the end of May/June. Funding for this initiative comes from the Department of Health. Cote said each workgroup receives a pool of money and gets to decide what to do with it; funds have been reserved for purchasing the cookbooks for this project.

Some of the past Physical Health and Nutrition initiatives included the free farmers’ markets with fresh, local and cultural food and virtual cooking classes. In the cooking classes, individuals pick up ingredients at the organization’s Huddle Center at 70 Gansett Ave. or from OneCranston HEZ’s office at 1090 Cranston St. The video is then dropped virtually and individuals can watch any time. The Community Connectors group has hosted numerous events including a world drumming event last June and a family event that took residents to four of Cranston libraries to participate in various activities.

OneCranston HEZ’s goal is to “to support and equip Cranston community members to collaborate and create projects, places, and programming where residents can healthily live, learn, work, and play.” The organization is one of 15 HEZs in Rhode Island and is a resident-funded initiative funded by the Rhode Island Department of Health with Comprehensive Community Action Plan (CCAP) as its backbone agency.

Anyone who would like to submit a recipe can reach out to JB at jfulbright@comcap.org or 401-208-3487. Submissions are open now through March 31.