The Bay Area’s Chef Daniel Patterson has great restaurants and grand ambitions, all very well executed. Especially exciting is a non-profit called The Cooking Project (TCP), with free cooking classes taught by chefs to at risk youth.
The non-profit is serving its first catered meal on Friday, May 15 (which is both Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Day and, ironically, National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day).
The meal is part of a teen prom for people with special needs, at a place called the Pomeroy Center.
How This Inspirational Program Works
Students from Larkin Street Youth Services will prepare and serve a wholesome and organic meal to 200 special needs teens and their supporters.
The youth get paid for their time and earn credit towards on-the-job training for future employment opportunities.
Ingredients are donated and from the center’s onsite garden. Inspired by the prom’s theme, “Enchanted Forest,” the menu will feature items like a “tangled salad.”
It’s a perfect testing ground for future programs. If the event is a success as anticipated, The Cooking Project will offer catering services to additional organizations and businesses in the area.
The goals of the catering services include:
- to create real world food service experience for TCP’s interested students;
- to offer top quality, chef-led, delicious catering for a cause to locals; and
- to support TCP’s free cooking classes and educational endeavors.
The Cooking Project
About the Cooking Project
The Cooking Project is a non-profit, community-based organization dedicated to teaching kids and young adults fundamental cooking skills, inspiring young people, regardless of background, to successfully take on challenges–in the kitchen and out.
Through the programs, young people prepare for success with 21st Century Skills and academic knowledge including:
- curiosity, creativity, self-discipline, and self-respect
- science, history, and other cultures
- critical cooking skills (and as a by product, all about healthy eating)
A community of chefs, writers, home cooks, farmers and growers teach how to connect with food through a variety of programs on everything from unusual ingredients to how to cook simple, tasty dishes at home.
CHIME IN: What other programs have you seen like this?
Sprouts Cooking Club is another program that pairs younger kids with professional chefs to learn about food, cooking and life
