The story of the four little characters, Sniff, Scurry, Hem and Haw, who make their way through a maze looking for the "Magical Cheese" that makes them happy. And once they find the Cheese, it seems like it will last forever-until one morning when everything changes. Who moved their Cheese? Will it come back? Or will they have to look for different Cheese, venturing onto strange paths, around corners they've never explored?

This book is part of a book club in the 5 and 6th grades for Promise. The book was funny to read and showed different personality traits. Obviously the fact that its about cheese peeked my interest even more. My favorite characters were Sniff and Scurry, because of their no fear approach and focus on the end result.

The next book is The Three Questions. Based on a story by Leo Tolstoy.

Thank you 5th and 6th graders for including the Kitchen Team to read along with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Everybody's got questions! Perhaps you want to know:
"What guides the food served at HCZ?"
"What is a healthy nutrition environment?"
"What menu options exist in the cafeteria?"

Look no further than our recently updated FAQ Page. Simply click on the question and it takes you to the full answer, often providing additional links to more resources.

Our FAQ list reflects the inquiries that we hear most often from students, parents, and staff members when we're talking to them about the food and nutrition environment at the Harlem Children's Zone. It's constantly evolving and being updated and we're happy to add new questions and answers. Do you have a question that isn't on the FAQ page? Post it as a comment and we'll do our best to answer it promptly.

How to Navigate An American Grocery Store

One of the issues we run into again and again in our community and in our own lives is the struggle for access to healthy, whole foods that are fresh and affordable. New York City recently identified East Harlem as one of the most severe "food deserts" in our city. According to the New York City Department of City Planning, a food desert is a term used to describe "communities characterized by not enough supermarkets and too many health problems. Within those dense, urban areas, the study estimated that 750,000 people live more than five blocks from a grocery or supermarket."


We know there is room for improvement in our community's food scene and we're excited about helping to encourage and support it. We are in the process of working with the city and our High School Student Wellness Council to Adopt-A-Bodega around the corner from our main building. And we've been busy working with our adult groups too--from parents to staff--to educate them about healthful, affordable ways to maximize their food budget in our evening cooking classes. 


This video, featuring well-known food journalist Michael Pollan, describes how even the modern American supermarket (if you're lucky enough to have a good one in your neighborhood) is designed to market you all kinds of food products you don't need, before offering you the basics like milk and eggs. Watch and learn and then the next time you're walking along 125th, ask yourself "how can I help encourage my community to create and support a healthier nutrition environment?" even beyond HCZ and Promise Academy.


One final note, we recently updated our Frequently Asked Questions page to include more complete answers and better information to some of the most common questions we hear from students, staff, and parents. Please check it out and we'd love to know what you think!

ACA Aids Walk 5.15.11

The HCZ A Cut Above Students geared up for their participation in the 2011 Aids Walk on May 15th. The students committed to participate as they focus on Community Service. The morning brought a pouring rain and yet they were dedicated to walk for the cause!!!! Students walked through the doors at 8am with ponchos, hats and ipods ready to get moving. After breakfast the rain begin to slow down a bit which was great. The staff and students kept up the team momentum with cheers and chants as transition began. There were 33 middle school students and 8 staff representing the HCZ A Cut Above program. The rain was not a barrior...way to go ACA!!!!

Make a Commitment to Wellness!

With your help, our community can change the alarming national trends towards lower life expectancy and obesity for the next generation that the modern American diet and an inactive lifestyle contributes to. We strive to teach our community how to eat for life: to set our children up to thrive and live their best life. We want to help  you develop a healthy relationship to food and an active lifestyle. And we need you to support HCZ's healthy nutrition environment.

Be A Positive Example

Adult members of the Harlem Children's Zone and Promise Academy communities set an example for our children. Whether you are a teacher, a parent or a member of the staff you help our kids learn to recognize food as fuel for their growing bodies and active minds. You can also help us teach the next generation of Harlem's children healthy ways to celebrate their own food traditions as a unique expression of family and culture while modeling what kinds of foods they should be seeking out and piling on their plates. Click to read more about HCZ's Wellness Policy and our Community Food Pledges.

Eat for Life

The basics of a healthy balanced diet are simple, but not always easy to satisfy. Essentially our bodies need a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins to function well. Our bodies also do best when we are active--for kids that means at least 60 minutes of active play a day! We've got lots of opportunities to get active around HCZ for parents, staff and students to take advantage of.

Create Change

Too much of the food that is readily available in Harlem and across the country is heavily processed and full of excessive salt, sugar and chemical additives. Whether you call it fast food or junk food the additives can cause high blood pressure, interfere with mental focus, cause mood swings, interrupt our natural sleep cycles and even contribute to our risk of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. We encourage you to fill your diet with more "whole foods" that are minimally processed and free of all the junk that's snuck its way into the typical American diet.

Simple, not easy

We recognize that changing your diet (especially as an adult) is not an easy task. That's why we're committed to helping you any way we can. Please let us know if you have specific needs or questions about eating well or feeding your family healthfully and we'll do our best to serve your specific needs. In the meantime, check out some of the excellent resources available around the web to help you eat better, get more activity and get involved with movements for creating positive change in our food systems locally and nationally.

Please visit our Wellness Resources to link to some of our favorite sites, groups and tools about healthy eating, living well, and making positive changes for yourself, your kids and your community.

The Educated Eaters Project

The Educated Eaters Project works to transform how the HCZ community engages with food—through improving our nutrition environment and thinking more sustainably about what we eat through hands-on nutrition education in the garden and the kitchen, in the classroom and the boardroom. 


Find out more about our ongoing projects here.

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We all must eat. Our work is to educate our community around how to eat better. We are not all called to work as gardeners, chefs or farmers, but eating is one of our most basic instincts and needs. We need to eat throughout our lives. We participate in the food system, to some degree or another, every day. But as the world has become busier and more complex we’ve grown increasingly disconnected from our food sources and our eating habits. Our neighborhood and our nation is currently struggling with a food identity crisis and the resulting health problems are costing us not just in terms of years of our lives, but in terms of quality of our health.

The Educated Eaters Project is committed to teaching the next generation how to feed themselves better. To achieve this goal, we’ve got to have comprehensive community support on all levels—from parents and students, to staff and policy makers. Eating may be one of our most basic instincts, but we believe it needs more focus and attention that we’ve been giving it.

The Educated Eaters Project strives to empower our community to eat more responsibly, more carefully and more sustainably. This work takes many forms and venues—as it should—since food is culture and culture change is slow work. We must first understand what better food is, then make better food more accessible through education, collaboration and outreach, and all the while remind ourselves of the truth that eating healthfully is a key component of living well. The changes will come through baby steps that over time will have a huge impact.

The conversation about food is connected to every area of scholarship and society. Together let’s rediscover how to grow, cook, eat and engage with food in a healthy, sustainable and responsible way. Transforming what we eat is crucial to HCZ’s larger missions—in the classroom, the future and beyond. The better we eat, the better we learn and the better we live. So, join us as we create a community of Educated Eaters.