Fundraising

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Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival

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We’re writing to amplify the 11th Annual Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival run by City Food Magazine! Vancouver’s best chocolatiers, pastry shops, bakeries, cafes, gelato, and ice cream makers are coming together, again, to create delectable hot chocolates to warm your bodies and cheer up your soul during Vancouver’s’ damp and gloomy Winter.

Growing Chefs Hot Chocolate Festival.jpg

The initiative started in 2011 and was the first city-wide initiative in the world to use the hot chocolate beverage as a way to support small, local businesses. The initiative also donates a portion of proceeds to three charitable partners, including Growing Chefs; The Downtown Eastside Women’s Job Training Program of the PHS COMMUNITY SERVICES SOCIETY - run by East Vancouver Roasters; and Fresh to Families - Farmers Market Nutrition Coupon Program for low-income families, run by Vancouver Farmer Markets. This past year has been especially hard on local businesses and the Hot Chocolate Festival has allowed donations to their charitable partners to be optional for 2021.

The Hot Chocolate Festival encourages all participants to follow covid-19 safety protocols. And has modified the festival to respect BC Health Authority rules and regulations, including encouraging social distancing, mask-wearing, and offering takeout options. Some vendors will also be offering DIY hot chocolate kits that you may purchase to take home or mail to friends who will not be with you this year.  For a full list of covid-19 measures, click here.

If drinking hot chocolate isn’t sweet enough, the Hot Chocolate Festival will also be having a photo contest on Instagram with $975 in gift certificate prizes available from participating vendors. You could be enjoying sweet treats for months to come if you win. For details on the contest, click here.  

Our Growing Chefs team members and volunteers will be making their way across Vancouver, Burnaby, and White Rock to try a few of the hot chocolate creations. Stay tuned on our Instagram for updates on what we try!

Thank you to all the vendors who are participating in the festival. For a list of vendors and flavors, click here. And for a virtual map of vendors, click here. 

We’d also like to extend a big thank you to Daily Hive, BC Food + Wine Radio, Made in Print, and Vancouver Farmers Markets for sponsoring the festival.

And of course, a huge thank you to City Food Magazine for putting on the Hot Chocolate Festival and including Growing Chefs as a charitable partner for the 4th year. We’re so grateful.

List Of Vendors

Click on vendor names for a link to their available flavours.
🌱plant-based options available

Stirring Up Fun!

Calling kids of all ages! A fun family cooking class awaits!

Stirring Up Fun happens this Sunday, November 8th. This class is going to be so cool. Grab your kid-sized aprons (and your kids!) and master your family’s cooking skills with Chef Alain Chow of the acclaimed Vancouver restaurant, Kissa Tanto. Consistently ranked as one of Canada’s best restaurants since opening its doors in 2017, Kissa Tanto is basically… a big deal!

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stirring up fun - Family cooking class | november 8, 2020 | 3:00 PM
$50 INCLUDES ingredients from Whole foods market | $20 ZOOM ONLY

Chef Alain will walk your family through some accessible cooking techniques to help you make a delicious, nutritious, and vegan (but so good!) pasta dish based on Kissa Tanto’s famous Tajarin Pasta. How can stock infuse your pasta sauce with flavour? What is nutritional yeast for? Answer these questions and many more this Sunday.

Photo by Scout Magazine

Photo by Scout Magazine

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Our longtime friends, Whole Foods Market is sponsoring out From Farms to Forks Food Series, and also providing the ingredients you’ll cook with! The team at Whole Foods have carefully selected ingredients from their stores to help recreate restaurant-quality food at home.... with your kids! Sound too good to be true? We promise, it’s not! Ingredient packages will be available for pick-up at two convenient Whole Foods locations, with everything you need for the meal (except a little oil and salt) already assembled. Easy peasy!

Speaking of Whole Foods, Growing Chefs is currently the beneficiary of the fall 2020 bag donation program! All BC Whole Foods locations are collecting 10 cent donations for Growing Chefs for every bag you don’t take home. Don’t forget--pack a reusable bag, save the environment, AND support food literacy in your community… all in one.

Now, don’t see the word vegan and opt out! We’re telling you… Chef Alain has packed nutrition and flavour into this dish. And we purposely chose a cool vegan dish to teach you something new. You and your little chefs will learn how to use products you might not encounter every day and make something you eat all the time more nutritious. 

And, there’s more! A musical guest. No kidding! The maestro Matt Kennedy (who happens to be a Growing Chefs board member on top of being an incredible musician) will delight you with tunes for all ages following the cooking demonstration! Enjoy restaurant ambience in your own home, with a chef-coached meal and musical entertainment… you’ll basically be fine dining!

Matt Kennedy is a Vancouver-based singer-songwriter and member of several acoustic string bands including fan favourite "Farmteam".  Matt sings and plays guitar and mandolin.

Get your kids and grownups into the kitchen! Can’t wait. Hope to see you there.

Donor Shoutout: Culinary Cache

As we soar through the From Farms to Forks Food Series, we want to take a moment to spread the love to our amazing sponsors and donors. Today we will be acknowledging those who contributed to our Culinary Cache, a complimentary gift bag that was delivered to our VIP ticket holders filled with tasty treats and products celebrating local food producers and businesses.

A big thank you to: The 101 Brewhouse + Distillery, Abeego, Bespoke Spirits House, best kind bakeshop, Davis Bay Tea Co, Earnest Ice Cream, Edible Vancouver & Wine Country, Fresh Roots, Fresh Prep, Hives for Humanity, KICS Lemonade, Klippers Organics, Knifewear, Mission Hill Family Estate, Tempea Natural Foods, Victoria Olive Oil Co, Whole Foods Market, and Zaklan Heritage Farm.

An extra thank you to J. Josue Photography for capturing all of these images, and Il Centro, Italian Cultural Centre for providing a safe space to pack our caches.

Keep an eye out for more posts about the other amazing people and places we’re collaborating with! Missed our Culinary Kick-Off and Loco for Cocoa? Not to worry; we have more amazing events coming up, including:

  • Thursday, October 29th at 8:00 pm: Lettuce Ask You a Question (Food Trivia)

  • Sunday, November 1st at 7:00 pm: Vivacious Vegetables (Cooking Class) with Chef Devon Latte of The Acorn Restaurant

  • Sunday, November 8th at 3:00 pm: Stirring Up Fun (Family Cooking Class) with Chef Alain Chow of Kissa Tanto

OUR DONORS LOVED THEM, is a bit of an understatement:

Join us to get Loco for Cocoa!

Less than one week until Loco for Cocoa, our second delicious event in our From Farms to Forks Food Series. I haven’t been this excited about an event in a long time.

loco for cocoa chocolate experience | october 25, 2020 | 7:30 pm

If you haven’t heard the details, it’s an online celebration of all things chocolate! The night includes cool (but short!) lectures on the history of chocolate and how cacao is grown, along with a live demonstration of a delectable chocolate dessert. It’s going to be super fun.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Merri Schwartz, the founder of Growing Chefs and one of the current Co-Interim Executive Directors. But I’m also a professional pastry chef and chocolatier. Talking and teaching about chocolate are two of my favourite things of all time.

Me surrounded by chocolate treats.

Me surrounded by chocolate treats.

What I’m most excited about for Loco for Cocoa are the people. 

I get to work on the dessert with a good friend and one of my favourite pastry chefs (oh, and newest Growing Chefs board member), Wendy Boys! Wendy and I always have a great time together, and we’re stoked to do our chocolate class with a little banter. We all spend a lot of time watching talking heads online these days, and interacting with a colleague--even through Zoom--is a much more fun way to teach you how to make dessert.

The amazing Wendy Boys! Photo by Mavreen David Photography.

The amazing Wendy Boys! Photo by Mavreen David Photography.

Then, we have Shelley Bolton. Another dear friend and favourite collaborator, Shelley is the manager and chocolate maker at the amazing East Van Roasters. She’s going to explain how cacao is grown and how chocolate is made, and share about her experiences at cacao farms in the jungles of Guatemala and the hills of Hawaii. Can’t wait!

Shelley Bolton making chocolate in a 30 kg stone grinder.

Shelley Bolton making chocolate in a 30 kg stone grinder.

Our third guest, Dr. Shea Henry, is a scholar who knows aaaaaaaall about the history of chocolate. I could listen to Shea talk for hours about the archaeology of food. The current Director and Archivist at the Maple Ridge Museum, Shea is full of cool, historical facts and has been giving talks about the history of chocolate for the past ten years!

We cannot wait for Shea’s talk about the history of chocolate!

We cannot wait for Shea’s talk about the history of chocolate!

Oh, and I can’t forget the other awesome piece! The local bit. We decided for the dessert that we’re going to source every. single. item. locally. (Of course, technically… the cacao and the sugar in the chocolate are imported. But because the product is roasted and ground right in the Downtown Eastside, we decided to count it.) 

The pears are from Parsons Farm Maket, the honey is from Hives for Humanity, we’ll have Mission Hill Family Estate wine, and the wonderful Earnest Ice Cream… all from BC! Even our vegan options are local: the Earth's Own oat cream, and Blue Heron Cheese plant-based butter both hail from Vancouver, while the Cosman & Webb maple syrup comes from a lovely farm in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. The salt is courtesy of the amazing Salt Spring Sea Salt.

If you join us, your $75 ticket will land you a package of these items so you can follow along as we cook. Or just keep to enjoy later ;). For those of you who are from out of town, you’re still welcome to join the Zoom for just $20! We will provide you with a shopping list so you can follow along too.

Thank you Mavreen David Photography for visiting Chef Wendy Boys during her run-through.

We’re so grateful for the support of our Silver Thyme event sponsors, Mission Hill Family Estate and Whole Foods Market for helping us throw fun events like this one. Thank you Pacific Restaurant Supply for opening your space to allow for safe and convenient ingredient pick up!

I’d be honoured to have you on board. Let’s celebrate chocolate and Growing Chefs together! Purchase your tickets here, and check out the other great events we have coming up here.

loco for cocoa chocolate experience | october 25, 2020 | 7:30 pm

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Growing Chefs! is Growing in Vancouver and Victoria. Join our team!

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Do you want to support healthy, sustainable and just food practices and systems? Improve the health and nutrition of kids and youth? Make local, sustainable food accessible? Connect communities through food? If yes, then Growing Chefs! might be the place for you! 

What we offer:

  • A supportive, collaborative, fun work environment

  • Opportunity to develop, expand your skills

  • A chance to make a difference in the food system

We are currently looking for two people to join our team: 

We will be conducting interviews as applications come in, so please don’t wait to submit. The positions may be filled before the closing dates.

Give the Gift of Gardens, Give the Gift of Growth

Did you see the lights? Last night, Science World glowed green for Growing Chefs! Tonight, on Giving Tuesday, BC Place is also going to be lit up green. When you see those lights, we hope you’re reminded of the hard work our chef volunteers put in to help kids’ connections to food take root.

Too many kids lack access to healthy, whole food or know where food comes from or how it’s grown. Growing Chefs! is on a mission to change that. Through our food literacy programs, delivered by teams of chef and community volunteers, we give kids and youth hands-on experience with the whole food cycle, from seed to plate to compost. 

Your donation this holiday season will help more BC kids build connections to the earth, local food systems, and with one another as they care for and harvest their gardens, and prepare and share meals together. We hope to raise $20,000 by the end of 2019.

A donation of:

  • $500 is equivalent to the cost of all the gardening and cooking equipment for one class

  • $200 is equivalent to the entire cost of the Classroom Gardening & Cooking Program for one student

  • $150 is equivalent to soil, seeds, and all of the gardening equipment needed for one classroom garden

  • $25 is equivalent to soil for one classroom garden

Giving Now Means Giving More!

Local businesses Houweling’s, Lyra Growth Partners, and Shauna Gold Personal Real Estate Corporation have committed to doubling donations* (including the annual pledged donation amounts for new Champion Radish Club monthly donors) between December 3 – December 31, 2019.

What’s the Champion Radish Club?

We’re so glad you asked. Our monthly donors make up the Champion Radish Club. Your monthly gift will provide a consistent, reliable, and predictable source of funding. This sustainability allows us to plan ahead and implement our hands-on programs more efficiently. It also lowers administrative costs.

Why choose monthly giving?

  • Your gift is easy, secure, and green—a monthly donation saves paper, postage, and energy!

  • You ensure your gift has the greatest possible impact!

  • You will get special updates from the classroom from our participating students!

  • You will get exclusive event invites to special events like the Affogato Affair and Beer, Bread & Butter!

  • You get to be a Champion Radish (A most delicious type of radish!)

Donation commitments can be made online using a credit card (via Canada Helps) between December 3 and December 31, 2019 to be eligible for matching.

For more information, or to make a matching commitment from your business: contact Jaydeen Williams, Development & Communications Director, jaydeen@growingchefs.ca or 604-710-1677.

* up to a maximum determined by corporate #GivingTuesday donations

THANK YOU to our Giving Tuesday partners: