Our program team and our chef and community volunteers really missed being in the classroom this year. Although we couldn’t visit in person, we came up with a new way to connect with B.C. kids.
The Vegeta-Pal Program!
A modern and tasty pen pal project… with a twist! This fall we paired elementary school classrooms across the province with volunteer food systems champions to build relationships, interest, and connection around growing and cooking food. The Vegeta-pal program provided a new way for us to deliver upon our mission of connecting chefs, kids, and communities to foster systemic change towards healthy, sustainable, and just food practices.
What do the teachers think?
Our classroom has had the opportunity to work with the Growing Chefs program for the past few years. It was an awesome program, very informative and hands-on for the students. We loved having the chefs in the classroom as they were very knowledgeable and interacted well with the kids, their enthusiasm about food was infectious! This year, we have been given the opportunity to work with vegeta-pals as we cannot have the chefs physically visit our classroom. So far, they have been great! The students loved the first video and activity. We are looking forward to the next few weeks of the program.
- Michelle Cavanagh
Grade 5/6 Classroom Teacher Champlain Heights Elementary, Vancouver
How do the volunteers feel?
The Vegeta-pal Program through Growing Chefs has been a fantastic inspiration for us. This virtual program has allowed us to connect with local children to share our favourite food stories, culinary inspirations & ultimately, to really connect with our future foodies, farmers, & chefs on what they love to eat & where the food they are enjoying comes from. A bit of culinary education, geography & math is added to the pot for good measure. One of us is a farmer, & the other, a Chef, so we were inspired to become vegeta-pals simply to connect kids to their food. Where it comes from, how it grows & to encourage a healthy understanding of their favourite foods. We are hopeful that our vegeta-pals will be inspired to learn more about their favourite foods, hopefully just as inspired as we are to teach them about the process involved from growing to eating!"
- Miche & Patrick
Vegeta-pals, Vancouver Island
And most importantly, what do the kids think?
“We have had lots of learning and fun, such as our online field trip and learning about the six parts of a plant (stem, roots, leaves, seeds, fruits, and the flowers) from our vegeta-pals. Some other things we learned are planting in an urban environment is called Urban Agriculture. Urban Agriculture is important because we can’t always rely on imported food. A good way to help is to plant seeds on your balcony backyard, or somewhere else.
- Brendan, age 10
Right now we can’t have anyone come into our class, but we are in the new Vegeta-pal Program. I am a vegetarian and enjoy eating and cooking with vegetables.
- Sabrina, age 10
“My Vegeta-pals are amazing and cool. I can’t wait until I learn about every vegetable so I can make salad every day.”
-Arianna, age 10
