This past December and January, Cooking Matters and the 21st Century After School program hosted a six-week Cooking Matters for Kids class at the Clinton Avenue School in New Haven, Connecticut. Each week, Cooking Matters instructor Gina Marie Vecchitto set up her “mobile kitchen” in the school cafeteria so 10 fifth-grade students could learn about nutrition and partake in hands-on cooking. The menus included apple and sunflower seed salad, turkey burgers, chocolate-strawberry French toast, smoothies, stove-top mac ‘n’ cheese, yogurt parfaits, mini-pizzas, and mozzarella sticks.
Surprisingly, it turned out that half of the students remembered Gina Marie from a spring 2016 Cooking Matters demo at another New Haven school. The short 20-minute nutrition and mindful eating exercise with a single chocolate chip she did then had quite the impact on the kids.
At the final session of the Cooking Matters class, the eight students who attended all of the required classes received certificates of graduation. Many of them said that they really enjoyed learning to cook and hoped to do another class soon.
If you would like to volunteer, donate, or host a Cooking Matters class – visit http://www.cookingmattersct.org
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