On Saturday, August 1, friends old and new gathered at Katchkie Farm for The Sylvia Center’s 19th Annual Farm to Table fundraiser, an evening celebrating seasonal food, community, and the young people at the heart of our work.
Set among the fields and gardens of the Hudson Valley, Farm to Table brings together many of the things that define The Sylvia Center: growing and cooking fresh food, learning through hands-on experiences, and sharing a meal with others. This year, guests had the chance to experience all of them.
Early in the evening, guests explored the Learning Garden, where more than 250 varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers grow throughout the season. Staff stationed around the garden shared tastes and stories from what was growing—from the many colors and varieties of carrots to herbs and edible flowers including basil, mint, dill, nasturtiums, and staghorn sumac.
There were opportunities to taste the garden, too, through drinks made with ingredients grown on the farm, including sumac lemonade, a cucumber mint cooler, and a carrot, ginger, and peach Sunset Punch. It was a playful way to experience a space that serves as an outdoor classroom throughout the season, inviting young people to taste unfamiliar ingredients, understand where food comes from, and discover how much there is to explore in a garden.
That same spirit of curiosity continued during cocktail hour, where students from Perfect Ten in Hudson and the Mindful Miller Mustangs in Kingston prepared and served seasonal bites featuring ingredients at their summer peak.
Among them were sweet corn esquites tostadas—a recipe with its own Sylvia Center story.
Weeks earlier, students in our first-ever Upstate Teen Culinary Apprenticeship had started with the same seasonal ingredient and a challenge: turn sweet corn into a dish worthy of the Farm to Table Teen Station. Working alongside Sylvia Center educators, they tested different preparations, debated seasoning, flavor, and presentation, and combined their strongest ideas to create the final recipe.
By Farm to Table, that recipe had made its way into the hands of another group of young people, who prepared and proudly served it to guests alongside cauliflower laab lettuce cups and jerk carrot skewers.
It’s the kind of experience that gets to the heart of The Sylvia Center’s approach to food education. A recipe can teach far more than how to prepare a dish. It can ask young people to collaborate, solve problems, make decisions, trust their own ideas, and take pride in sharing something they’ve created with others.
As the sun began to set over the farm, everyone gathered beneath the tent for dinner. Learning Garden Manager Julie Cerny and Learning Garden Intern Nate shared personal reflections on the power of growing and cooking fresh food, and the ways those experiences can build confidence, curiosity, and connection.
Then came a beautiful seasonal dinner prepared by Great Performances, accompanied by live music and surrounded by the fields and gardens that had shaped so much of the evening.
For 19 years, Farm to Table has been an opportunity to gather around good food in a beautiful place. But it is also a celebration of what becomes possible when young people are given the tools, knowledge, and confidence to take an active role in the food they eat—from discovering an ingredient growing in the ground to preparing a dish and proudly serving it to someone else.
This year, that celebration also translated into extraordinary support for the work ahead. Together, guests, donors, auction bidders, sponsors, and community partners helped raise more than $160,000 for The Sylvia Center.
Those funds will support hands-on cooking and food education for thousands of young people and families across New York City and the Hudson Valley—creating more opportunities for students to cook, taste, explore, and discover what they’re capable of.
We’re deeply grateful to everyone who joined us at Katchkie Farm and helped make this year’s Farm to Table possible. We can’t wait to gather around the table again next year.
