The Current Wednesday, July 31, 2013
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D.C. Council to consider Cheh bill to allow sale of home-cooked food By ALIX PIANIN Current Staff Writer
Amateur bakers could start selling the goods whipped up in their own kitchens if the D.C. Council approves a measure now advancing through the legislative process. Introduced in March by Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh, the Cottage Food Act of 2013 would alter current law requiring that forsale food be made in commercial kitchens. The legislation would allow such “cottage food� businesses to sell their products only at farmers markets or public events, and it would
apply only to bakers earning less than $25,000 a year from their home-cooked food. In offering the bill, Cheh followed the lead of dozens of states that have relaxed some of the licensing procedures and fees for people interested in preparing small batches of foods in their private residences. According to her staffers, Cheh’s bill was particularly modeled after cottage food laws in Maryland. Sellers would have to label all their goods with basic nutritional information and include a disclaimer that the food has not been subject to a formal health inspection — though the D.C. Health Department could investigate any
Local partnership helps fight kids’ summer learning slump
complaints about goods sold through the cottage food business, according to Andrew Laine, a law fellow at Cheh’s office who worked on the bill. The council’s Committee on Health recently backed the Cottage Food Act and will present the legislation to the full council upon return from recess in September. While Laine said he has not heard much disagreement over the bill, he said it will eventually be up to the Department of Health to define the regulatory parameters. For example, the bill is designed for startup businesses that produce “non-hazardous�
foodstuffs (baked goods being at the forefront), but the Department of Health will have to define exactly what “hazardous� foods would be excluded. One obvious prohibition would be meats prepared in unlicensed home kitchens, Laine said. But the bill could give potential smallbusiness owners the encouragement they need to get off the ground in the comfort of their own homes, said Niall Cooper, who recently opened BakeHouse with his wife at 14th and T streets NW. The couple began by perfecting See Bill/Page 15
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By KAT LUCERO Current Staff Writer
Since launching in D.C. in 2010, Tales2Go, a mobile app service that streams children’s audiobooks, has expanded to classrooms and homes all over the country, and won several parents-choice awards. But this summer the educational company is focusing on a goal close to home. During the vacation months, Tales2Go has been working to help shrink the opportunity gap for some students just a mile north of its Foxhall headquarters. At St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School, where a summer enrichment program serves economically disadvantaged students, participants can access a wide variety of Tales2Go titles such as “Little Women,� “The Hunger Games� and “Pete the Cat.� By partnering with the enrichment program — called Horizons Greater Washington — Tales2Go is working to help prevent the academic learning slump known in the education world as “summer learning loss.� The loss is prevalent among students who have little access to educational programs outside the regular academic year. Tales2Go CEO William Weil has always wanted his tool to be used in all types of classrooms. Through the Horizons collaboration, he said, his service is helping “kids who normally don’t have certain kinds of resources push them along in their reading.� Weil, a former television executive at National Geographic and Nickelodeon, co-founded Tales2Go with his wife, Tracey, to make their children’s learning experience easier and more engaging. According to the Weils, listening to audiobooks improves a child’s ability to listen, comprehend reading materials, build a vocabulary and pronounce words. In the past three years, their product has become a popular education tool, merging the traditions of storytelling with today’s newest mobile gadgets. For Horizons Greater Washington, the new partnership with Tales2Go helps “build [students] up and then augment them with an enrich-
Bill Petros/The Current
Summer students at Horizons are streaming audiobooks.
ing experience,� said the program’s executive director, Maria Barry. Horizons is a nonprofit that has been helping students from lowincome families maintain and improve their academic outcomes since 2000. Currently, it partners with three private schools — Maret, St. Patrick’s and Norwood in Bethesda — to host summer and yearlong programs for students attending local public elementary schools H.D. Cooke, Bancroft and Rock Creek Forest. For the summer, the nonprofit offers six-week programs with a mixed curriculum of math, art, reading, writing, field trips and recreation. Head teacher Katherine Orlando’s students — who will be entering third grade at Bancroft Elementary in Mount Pleasant this fall — are among the first in the Horizons summer program to experience Tales2Go. During a 30-minute scheduled reading session, Orlando sets up three rotating learning stations. At these areas, each group of five students spends 15 to 20 minutes working on reading and comprehension skills with Orlando or an assistant teacher. One of these stations is an independent listening section, where students can hook up headphones to an See Learning/Page 15
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