We’ve hit the ground running in 2024! Not only have we been thrilled to receive a significant grant and an award (more details below) but we're commencing our spring sessions in no less than 22 different locations across the Bay Area.
We are currently honoring Black History Month and Lunar New Year. Southern dishes like Hoppin' John are on the menu in our classrooms, and we're also preparing traditional Chinese dumplings. Currently, we’re working with our culturally diverse staff to create an ever-increasing selection of healthy recipes that are culturally relevant and familiar to all of our students. An added bonus of our focus on these recipes is that students can explore each others' cultural histories through food, which further broadens the scope of the work we so love to do.
We couldn't be more excited to be going forward into 2024, to teach life enhancing nutritional knowledge and cooking skills to as many children in under-resourced communities as we possibly can. We're reaching an ever-increasing number each year, but as the childhood diabetes statistics show, there are still many more kids who can benefit. A traditional Cantonese New Year's greeting is 'san tai gin hong,' which means wishing you good health! We're so glad you stand behind us and remain, as always, incredibly grateful for your support. THANK YOU!
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Warm wishes,
Lara Rajninger
Executive Director
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Grant for Continued Classes in Marin City |
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In January, we were honored to receive a grant from Harbor Point Charitable Foundation to fund a years worth of classes at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City, and we’re so very grateful to them for helping us to continue our important work there. Lara Rajninger, our executive director, is pictured with Harbor Point board member Ray Kaliski.
This grant coincides perfectly with Black History Month which runs from February 1st to March 1st. African Americans from the South, primarily Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi came to Marin City in the 1940s, during WW II, for work opportunities at the Marinship Corporation Shipyard. Here they built tankers and Liberty Ships that carried war cargo. Segregation and redlining after the war limited African Americans to this small community, where many descendants of the original ship builders still live today and where marginalization and a wide health, wealth and education gap has continued to occur over the decades.
Michelle Bryant, our instructor at MLK Jr Academy and a Marin City resident herself, sees the healthy adaptation of Southern recipes as the perfect way to celebrate and explore her students' shared history. She also likes to include a quick geography lesson with each session, and she’s an expert on selecting and adapting recipes so that her students will love to eat what they cook. Additionally, she’s the enthusiastic manager of the school garden, and keen to introduce the bounties grown there into the recipes she teaches in class, with an emphasis on eating seasonally. A huge THANK YOU to Harbor Point for enabling us to keep teaching in Marin City.
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Thrilled to Be Honored by the Boys and Girls Club |
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We're incredibly humbled to have received an outstanding achievement award from The Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco, Visitacion Valley Clubhouse. Pictured, center, is our President Saeri Yuk, with BGCSF Visitacion Valley Clubhouse staff members Nikki Carroll and Daniel Lumbreras. Each year, this clubhouse honors and celebrates the outstanding accomplishments of their youth and community partners.
In the words of Nikki and Daniel, “Kids Cooking for Life has made an incredible impact on our youth, not only have they been able to grow their cooking skills but this program has also helped their social emotional needs as well by providing a natural place for youth to be leaders and support each other. Our kids love this program and we can’t wait to collaborate again in 2024.”
We're so grateful and proud. THANK YOU to our wonderful instructor, Angela Trinh, for making these classes so fun and informative and THANK YOU, Nikki and Daniel and everyone at The Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco, Visitacion Valley Clubhouse for your kind words and for being such a kind and generous collaborator.
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Nutritional Programs Have Long Term Impact |
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A research article published in January 2024, in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior has revealed how nutrition and cooking education during the elementary school years positively influences food decisions into young adulthood. It's the first study to examine the long term impact of such programs.
Christine St. Pierre, MPH, RD, Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Milken Institute School of Public Health, at The George Washington University, led the study. It focused on the organization, FRESHFARM FoodPrints, which has been teaching cooking and nutrition in 20 different elementary schools within a large urban public school district on the East Coast for nearly 15 years. Alumni, some of whom are now adults, were involved in a focus group designed to identify three areas of impact; immediate, beyond the classroom, and sustained. The immediate impact of the programs revealed enjoyment of food experiences, hands-on learning of food skills, and connection with peers through a shared experience. Beyond the classroom experience, the programs had shifted individual and family food choices and had increased both students' involvement in family food practices and their interest in fresh food options at school. Appreciation for fresh food, openness to trying new foods, and confidence in making food decisions were the sustained benefits of the programs.
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Meet Our Instructor - Michelle Bryant |
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Michelle is a small business consultant in the culinary space. She has been cooking and baking in Marin and Sonoma Counties as owner/operator of various school lunch programs, as well as a bakery, a café and a food manufacturing business. As one of the garden coordinators for the Sausalito Marin City School District, Michelle is responsible for teaching nutrition and healing of the body and soul through gardening. Growing and cooking food on school campuses has provided her the opportunity to illustrate to school-age children how to take care of themselves and the environment. Michelle is currently completing her degree in International Logistics at Skyline College. She's a valuable asset to the Kids Cooking for Life team and we're delighted to have her on board. |
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Recipe for Hoppin' John With Collards |
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To honor Black History Month, we're sharing a vegetarian version of this classic southern dish. Collards are in season right now, and this delicious recipe, laden with vegetables and beans, provides a hearty and nutritionally balanced meal for a cold winter's evening. Our students love it and we hope you will too!
Hoppin' John originated with the Gullah people, then spread widely through the American South. The Gullah are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. It's likely that Hoppin' John evolved from rice and bean mixtures that were the subsistence of enslaved West Africans en route to the Americas. The dish has been traced back to similar foods in West Africa, in particular the Senegalese dish thiebou niebe.
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Recipe for Chocolate “New-tella” Spread/Dip |
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As a nod to Valentine’s Day and as a token of our gratitude for your support and generous donations, we’re adding an extra recipe this month - a healthy chocolate spread. This alternative to the store bought ones is made with cannellini beans, honey and dark chocolate and tastes every bit as good as its commercial counterparts, which tend to be heavy in unhealthy oils, sugar and other processed ingredients. Spread our New-tella on bread, toast or pancakes with sliced strawberries on top. Deeeee-licious! ❤️ |
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“My mouth tastes like heaven!”
Junior Chef from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City after tasting the Brazilian black bean bowl.
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