It’s National Volunteer Week, and while we are always incredibly grateful for our amazing team of volunteers, this week in particular, we want to give them an extra special shout out for helping make our organization what it is. This year we are feeling particularly grateful (and even a little emotional) as we reflect on what our volunteers mean to us at Growing Chefs!
Let’s start by thanking our amazing team of 200 plus volunteers that were trained and ready to bring our hands-on gardening and cooking program into 58 elementary classrooms across B.C. this spring. What a cool group of chefs, farmers, gardeners, nutritionists, educators, and community members you are! I can’t tell you the number of times that a Growing Chefs! staff member says, “I just talked to the most awesome/knowledgeable/passionate volunteer”. Thank you for giving us your time and for being so excited to share your energy with kids.
When we learned that our teams would not be in the classroom this spring it was definitely disappointing, but we knew we had a group of volunteers that could help us create something new. Our staff team got to work on brainstorming other ways to teach kids, help meet the new needs in the community, and support our friends in the food industry. As always, our volunteers have stepped-up in whatever ways they can to work with us during this shift and are at the heart of everything we are doing. Here is what we have been working on together:
A Virtual Spring Program
more info at growingchefs.ca/whats-new
We are proud to be offering our Spring Program virtually with Growing Chefs! At Home, so families can incorporate food literacy into their home learning. What makes our classroom program so great is the wealth of knowledge, skill, and passion for healthy food that our volunteers bring with them into the classroom. As we have moved to offering lessons virtually, many of our volunteers have come forward as guest bloggers, are virtually inviting us into their home kitchens and gardens by creating lesson videos, and sharing their knowledge so we can still bring their vibrance and expertise to families and kids.
Your energy brings our curriculum to life. Many volunteers and supporters are sharing our work on social media, and sending us words of encouragement. These small things make a big difference to our work and help spread the word about the work we are doing. Thank you for working with us in this new way and please keep those ideas coming!
A New LunchLAB: Chefs for Families Program
more info at growingchefs.ca/lunch-lab
This past fall we started a pilot project in collaboration with Fresh Roots called LunchLAB. In LunchLAB, students grow their own food, supplement that food from local farms, and learn to cook for themselves and up to 185 of their peers twice a week.
Fresh Roots and Growing Chefs!, working with the Vancouver School Board and a fantastic team of collaborators and supporters (including Italian Cultural Centre and Ono Vancouver), quickly pivoted our innovative LunchLAB educational in-school meal program to offer students and their families delicious, healthy, chef-prepared meals out of school. These meals not only provide much-needed nourishment, but meaningful employment for chefs and kitchen professionals who would otherwise not be working.
This quick move to get healthy meals to those in need couldn’t have happened without the outstanding supporters and volunteers who have rallied with us to help us prepare, package, and deliver these chef-prepared meals twice a week. We are incredibly grateful and inspired by your support of this move.
Supporting You
Growing Chefs! has been supported for the last 15 years by phenomenal volunteers that have made our organization what it is today. We are especially grateful to have so many past and current volunteers from the local food community that have shared their passion for food with so many kids.
As many of the people who support us are now finding themselves faced with unprecedented challenges, we are working to ensure we support this incredible community that has long supported us. We are actively sharing your work on our social media channels so that our followers know how they can help you as well. Please reach out and let us know if there are other ways that we can help!
Happy National Volunteer Week!
