Chef Master Classes - Allergic to Salad
Healthy cooking made fun thru unique partnerships!
Leader
Genevieve Harding
Location
1 Broadway New York, NY 10001
About the project
With this fundraising campaign we want to bring a full year of restaurant partnerships to the public. Our goal is to nurture, develop and host 16 classes over the course of the next 12 months... We seek restaurants that share our ethos for local and seasonal cooking that also have a desire to change eating habits for the better, increase nutritional knowledge and connect with youth. Thru these partnerships we offer affordable community cooking classes, partnered with community restaurants. We develop relationships between the chef, the restaurant and the community and nurture a bond that lasts beyond the program date. The goal with these restaruant partenrships is to increase the understanding of healthy eating starting at the home. Our hope is that parents and students that attend these classes continue to seek out healthy cooking classes beyond the the partnership, return to their schools and demand more classes -- whether they be brought by Allergic to Salad, or another organization!
In schools, we offer fun, hands-on, from-scratch STEM-based healthy cooking classes to after-school and in-school programs for students aged PreK thru middle school. Our classes create a solid platform providing a lifetime of adventurous eating and purposeful life-skills. Classes focus on kitchen safety, knife skills and vegetable, fruit and equipment identification. Our students cook up-- and eat-- dishes like Spanikopita, Sushi, Paratha, Pumpkin Ravioli and more!
In the 2016-2017 school year we brought our classes to over 120 NYC school programs. We plan to increase this number in the 2017-2018 school year and these restaurant partnerships secure our footing in a community and build student trust before we head into the school -- students know our fun, healthy classes and want to take more!
While we raise funds for these classes, we'll continue our partnerships with NYC restaurants to help boost our campaign. Each of these restaurant partnerships offer a unique and affordable (under $10) chef-led cooking class in partnership with one of our trained educators. Post-class, the dish the students cook will be featured on the restaurant's menu for up to one month. Proceeds from purchases of this dish will be donated, with the help of ioby, back to Allergic to Salad.
The Steps
In this campaign, Allergic to Salad will partner with local restaurants to act as a base of our funding. With these restaurant partners we host affordable cooking classes ($8-10 registration fee) to youth in the community. The restaurant's chef leads a cooking class (in partnership with an ATS trained educator) and post-class the dish inspired by our students is featured on the menu! At the end of the restaurant's fundraising week, proceeds are donated to ATS (thru ioby)! We are lining up one restaurant every month to participate in this unique partnership!
Allergic to Salad will also perform more "traditional" outreach for this campaign with targeted asks, personal calls/ emails, social media pushes, newsletter asks and more.
We will also work in conjunction with our educators to make this campaign a success asking them to reach out to their base of friends and family.
Why we‘re doing it
Since 2008 I have taught healthy cooking classes to NYC public school students at after-school programs, summer camps and more. With increasing demand for my healthy, vegetarian curriculum I formed Allergic to Salad in 2013. Today, in the 2016-2017 school year our healthy STEM-based cooking classes are in over 100 school sites and we have a team of over 25 enthusiastic and amazing educators.
The language of food is universal. Many of our classes happen with non-native English speakers, title 1 schools and food deserts. Our vegetarian curriculum allows our students to engage in food in ways many of them traditionally don't, while we offer new combinations and tastes in a science-based curriculum.
Our classes address aspects of healthy eating, nutirtion, local food systems, food justice, food access and more. Classes provide basic kitchen safety, food handling, food prep and technique, including knife skills. Cooking is known to increase motor skills, math skills, build self-esteem, self-reliance, and more!