Star athletes and Nationwide Insurance members Danica Patrick and DeMarcus Ware competed in a healthy breakfast cook-off at AT&T Stadium to show off their cooking skills, raise awareness of the issue of hunger and teach local children about the importance of eating a healthy breakfast.
“We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it is definitely my favorite meal,” said Danica Patrick. “I love to cook, so I’m excited to get my competitive juices going and cook breakfast with these kids today.”
The kids picked their teams—the girls chose Danica and the boys chose DeMarcus.
Danica and DeMarcus were offered ingredients representative of the healthy food distributed by the North Texas Food Bank and worked with their teams of kids to select the items they would use to cook. Danica and DeMarcus went head-to-head both delving into the eggs. Danica chose to scramble eggs and egg whites to provide protein, while adding spinach for fiber and a little cheese for dairy. She also served up some french toast. DeMarcus cooked up an omelet adding veggies, with a side of toast and jam. With an eye for presentation, DeMarcus placed veggies on the plate to hopefully get some bonus points with the judges. Both stars jumped at the chance to show kids the importance of having fruit for breakfast too and created smoothies with berries.
“The opportunity to make a difference in the community is the best part about my job. I always jump at the chance to give back and support the city of Dallas and the state of Texas,” said DeMarcus Ware. “That’s why I’m so glad to be working with a company like Nationwide who puts this much effort into awareness for issues like child hunger.”
Surrounded by the children teammates who helped them cook, DeMarcus and Danica presented their dishes to the judges. Judges enjoyed DeMarcus’ sweet smoothie treat and had high compliments for Danica’s eggs and French toast. After careful taste testing the four judges (Blair Crossan, Nationwide Insurance; Jan Pruitt, North Texas Food Bank; Executive Chef Orazio Lamanna, Dallas Cowboys and local kid judge, Maddy Cooper) huddled together to make the decision.
”Today we had two impressive efforts and delicious dishes from DeMarcus and Danica, but the real winner today is the reason we are all here – it is the North Texas Food Bank,” said Blair Crossan, regional vice president of Nationwide’s Central Plains Regional Operations as he presented a $25,000 check from Nationwide to the North Texas Food Bank.
Each dollar donated to the North Texas Food Bank provides three meals for the hungry. This donation will buy 75,000 meals for hungry North Texans.
In Texas, 4.8 million people are food deprived (one in every six people). On average, the North Texas Food Bank provides access to 175,000 nutritious meals a day. However, on any given day of the year, nearly 300,000 meals are needed to feed hungry community members including children in North Texas.
Learn more about Nationwide’s longstanding partnership with Feeding America.
Read more about the North Texas Food Bank event on Nationwide’s blog.
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