Kids learn to cook with Growing Chefs!
In 2005, pastry chef Merri Schwartz, had a realization: so much food knowledge and passion was trapped behind kitchen walls. So she started to enable chefs and growers to share their valuable understanding of food sustainability, nutrition, and local agriculture with local communities. Since then, the program has taken root in elementary schools across Metro Vancouver.
Growing Chefs! runs a unique gardening and cooking program for elementary schools to get children in grades 1-6 excited about growing, cooking, and eating nutritious foods. Andrea Carlson (Burdock & Co.), Robert Clark (the Fish Counter), Tret Jordan (Homer St. CafƩ), and Robert Belcham (Campagnolo) are among the many dedicated volunteers who have helped take kids on a hands-on journey through a sustainable food system. Students learn how to plant and care for a garden, make a salad with all six parts of a plant, pickle vegetables, make a stock from scraps, and use different herbs. They participate in activities that teach them about urban agriculture, sustainable food choices, health and nutrition. And, they learn how to follow recipes and acquire basic cooking skills. At the end of the program, students put their new chops to the test with a final cooking lesson like a friendly stir-fry competition.
āOur program occurs in the classroom but what I find most inspiring is how the lessons are reaching beyond the classroom walls and going home with the students,ā says Amanda Adams, Program Coordinator at Growing Chefs! āLast year, I received a call from a mother of a student. She introduced herself as a nutritionist, telling me how healthy eating was always something the strived to instill the importance of in her children. Yet it was always a struggle to get her son to even be interested in trying vegetables at the dinner table. So she was quite surprised when he suddenly came home excited about eating kale, peas, and spinach, asking for her help to prepare recipes he had learned through our program.ā
Kids learn to grow vegetables with Growing Chefs!
Shannon Boudreau is a Growing Chefs! volunteer and a firm believer in food education. She is so passionate about the programās mission that she will be cooking in support of Growing Chefs! in this yearās DinnerPartyYVR. āAt the end of the program, a lot of them want to be chefsāitās adorable. And they are so thankful.ā Shannon remembers a student who asked to take leftovers home after each lesson. āOn the last day, I asked her what she did with the them. She said, āmy mom doesnāt know how to cook, and Iām gluten free. Everything we made here I can eat, so I would go home and make the exact same thing, as much as I could, for my family.āā The girl taught her mother that just because something isnāt labelled āgluten freeā doesnāt mean it has gluten in it; she opened a whole new world for herself and for her family.
Children, with their boundless energy and enthusiasm, are changing how their households use food. Finn, a grade 6 student, can attest to that: āIt can end up being a lot cheaper to grow your own vegetables, and theyāre fresher and healthierāthey havenāt travelled a long way from a farm halfway around the world. They go from your house, your garden, to your mouth.ā
āItās an empowering feeling to plant something, nurture it, and eat it,ā says Amanda. āItās such an amazing feeling for anybody of any age, but especially for a kid. Growing something themselves and then also involving kids in cooking really gets them interested in trying healthy foods they might normally turn their noses up at.ā
Fun with vegetables.
Like a well-tended and much loved plant, Growing Chefs! is growing. It all began with two elementary school classrooms 10 years ago; this spring, the program will be in 39 classrooms across Metro Vancouver. The program will also run in two schools in Victoria, thanks to its partnership with the Island Chefs Collaborative, as well as in two schools in Kelowna.
Inspired? There are many ways to get involved with Growing Chefs!, and you donāt have to be a chef to volunteer. The time commitment is smallāfour hours a month from April to mid-Juneāfor such a life-changing experience. (You can learn more about volunteering .) Growing Chefs! is also a favourite charity for many DinnerPartyYVR hobby chefs this yearāyou can dine with ; ; or āand thanks to sponsors like Cressy, 100 per cent of the proceeds will be going to the charity.
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DinnerPartyYVR presented by Cressey has raised over $30,000 for local charities. Tickets to a dinner in support of Growing Chefs! are available at .
