Building Healthy Communities offers free cooking classes for children, teens and moms

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Tags: Building Healthy Communities , Outreach

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Building Healthy Communities hosts free four-week cooking classes for children, teens and moms in Cleveland’s Central and Kinsman neighborhoods to teach healthy eating habits, and how to prepare healthy meals and snacks. Twenty children recently completed Jr. Chef classes taught by Sharon Glaspie, director of Building Healthy Communities, at the new CornUcopia Place kitchen in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood. The Jr. Chef classes, which Glaspie taught with the help of three members of the Garden Boyz, featured lessons on whole grains and high antioxidant foods. Jr. Chef students learned how to make muffins, pumpkin smoothies, turkey burgers and Halloween apple teeth using high antioxidant Red Delicious apples.

“It’s important to reach children at an early age because healthy eating habits learned early in life help form the basis for developing a healthy adult lifestyle,” said Glaspie.

Mom Chef classes begin Tuesday, November 6 at CornUcopia Place, where Glaspie will teach mothers how to prepare healthy meals that their children will enjoy. The free classes will run for four weeks every Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Contact Julia DiBaggio at 216-341-1455 to reserve a spot in the class or for more information.

CornUcopia Place is a community space providing nutrition education, cooking demonstrations, an open event space to be shared with the neighborhood, and a harvest preparation facility for use by local market gardeners.

Jr. Chef, Teen Chef and Mom Chef classes are also held on Mondays at Arbor Park Village in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood. Building Healthy Communities is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System. Pictured are participants in a recent Jr. Chef class, learning to make healthy whole grain muffins.