Carolyn Federman

Founder, Executive Director - Charlie Cart Project

Carolyn is the Founder and Executive Director of the Charlie Cart Project, an all-in-one mobile platform for food education. The Charlie Cart Project makes hands-on cooking accessible to all children with a turnkey set of tools, training and a fully equipped compact mobile kitchen. Prior to launching Charlie Cart in 2015, Carolyn led Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard Project, developed programming with British Chef and activist Jamie Oliver, and co-produced the undergraduate course, Edible Education 101 at UC Berkeley with Author Michael Pollan. Carolyn is the author of New Favorites for New Cooks, (Ten Speed/Random House, 2018) a cookbook for children and families.

In the year leading up to Oxbow, I became obsessed with the program, I was entranced with reading testimonials and researching interdisciplinary learning styles. When I arrived at Oxbow I was never disappointed, despite my endless expectations. I will forever cherish the time I spent at Oxbow and the connections I made there. Through Oxbow I was able to hone into the ideas I was thinking about, to refine my artistic process and to see the world in a new light every day of my life. I'm not going to say that without Oxbow I wouldn't be the person I am today, but I will say that without Oxbow it would have taken me at least four years to become who I am after one Oxbow semester.

— Phoebe Dubisch, Fall 2018

It's been a whirlwind week, but also a time when I sang the praises of Oxbow to my colleagues. I've been thinking much about how Oxbow is an exemplar of true education. That art centers the curriculum is hardly surprising, and for those of us who work within the traditional educational mold Oxbow offers a gold standard of focused project based learning. Beyond the school's approach to immersive experience are the intangibles which make Oxbow different. The sense of community and of working together, even as each student retained their strong individual presence is palpable. The feeling of warmth and trust between the adults and the nearly adults in the Oxbow community could be felt throughout the campus. The openness of the architecture and interconnectedness of the three studios in themselves speak of the Oxbow philosophy and identity. More than form follows function, the physical attributes of Oxbow have a distinct warmth and invite exploration.

I'm sure that the ongoing challenges of leading and reinventing your school might sometimes keep you from having the time to see Oxbow with the fresh eyes of a visitor, but your steady presence and vision are really visible in every detail. Thank you for inviting me to one of the most profound experiences in my career.

— Ken Rush, Visual Arts Department, Packer Collegiate Institute

At Oxbow, the eye and the hand are inseparable from the mind and because their peers are also artists, students adopt fresh attitudes toward their work.

— Charles Altieri, Rachel Anderson Stageberg Chair, Professor of English, University of California, Berkeley

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