A Prince Albert elementary school staff member wanting to do more for students that don’t always have enough to eat has organized a cooking club for children in grades six to eight to learn some new skills and more importantly, combat food insecurity.
Chelsey Honch, an Educational Assistant at Arthur Pechey Public School, said she wanted to come up with a way to better support students after seeing many of them come to school hungry every day.
When Honch told one of her friends, Kara Gray of Aurora Chiropractic, about her idea to set up a program that would both teach kids how to cook and send them home with food, Gray jumped on the opportunity to help out in any way she could. She also asked Desiree Hesson of The S2DIO to shop for groceries and teach the students some tricks in the kitchen.
“They’re absolutely loving it,” said Honch. “For those who don’t have food at home, we’re letting them take some home, so they’re all fed and we know that their bellies are full.”
As the cooking club runs strictly on donations, Honch and Gray came up with the idea to raise some money for the program by selling baked goods and taco-in-a-bag at Aurora Chiropractic during the upcoming car show in Prince Albert on Sunday.
“So far, we’ve had five weeks of cooking and this weekend, we’re going to take all of our baking that we’ve done and we’re going to attend our show at Aurora,” said Honch. “The students have prepped everything, they’ve cut everything, they’ve stored everything properly. They learned how to do all of the good stuff. So, we’re pretty excited.”
Support for the cooking club has poured in from all areas of the community. Meyers Ranch Beef donated the meat that will be used for the taco-in-a-bag and B&P Water has donated bottles of water for the event.
The money that is raised during Sunday’s fundraiser will go towards buying supplies and continuing the program into next year. It’s Honch’s hope that the club can eventually open up to more grades in the future, so that younger students can take part too.
The Arthur Pechey cooking club will be set up during the car show at Aurora Chiropractic on Sunday from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Food items made by the students will be available for purchase ranging in price from $0.50 to $10.