On the surface, cooking with kids and community service might seem like they have nothing in common. But if you just take a moment to consider it, they share several characteristics. Both require a serving of cooperation, a dash of patience and a pinch of creativity. Think it might not be worth the effort? Close your eyes and recall the expression on your child’s face when you praised her cooking or his participation in the kitchen. Now, imagine her sharing the fruits of her labor with a hungry child, or selling his treats at a bake sale…and then donating the proceeds to a cause he cares about.

Continue reading to learn about some of my favorite organizations that encourage children to use cooking as a vehicle to help the needy.

Michelle Stern, DooF’s Community Outreach Director, owns What’s Cooking, a certified green company that offers cooking classes for children in the San Francisco Bay Area. When she isn’t in the kitchen or at the computer, she’s the head chauffeur for her two children, dog walker to her two mutts, and chicken feeder for her backyard flock.

Related posts:

1. Chow Bella Kids: Cilantro-Lime Rice
2. My Cooking School for Kids: How it Began
3. Recipe for Cooking with Toddlers
4. Negotiating Dessert with the Kids
5. Animal Themed Recipes

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm and is filed under Community, Guest Globbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.