Kitchen Kids, Presented by Kelly Collins

Augsburg College Student

We talked about bringing nutrition education to youth. I learned different ways that would be helpful to present the information to students. I will take back to Augsburg different ways to approach the youth along with the older adults my Campus Kitchen is focused on.

Don Mowry, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

Kelly presented her case study of “Kitchen Kids” as a summer or year round project. We also discussed different types of CKP programming and the use and importance of contracts or memorandum of agreement and application and/or interviewing with young students so that problems do not arise down the road (e.g. tardiness). I got great program ideas for summer, interactive and educational programming as well as very specific suggestions for themes, activities and fund raising ideas.

Melissa Caron, Washington & Lee University

Kelly told us about the Kitchen Kids program that Northwestern did this past summer and we were able to ask her specific questions about the program. I learned about possible ways to integrate nutrition programming into a kid friendly program at my own school. It was useful to hear about he inner working of Northwestern’s program and to pick Kelly’s brain about what did and did not work at her school. Kelly gave us great ideas that a flexible for use at other schools. W&L has been very interested in developing a program for kids and it was helpful to hear about how Northwestern made its program work. I hope to bring back some of these ides to develop a program for W&L’s local community.

Jenna Rycek, University of Nebraska at Kearney

Kelly told us about how her university created the Kitchen Kids program. I learned that creating a menu book that the kids added to worked with lectures. It allowed for the kids to take pride in what they were learning and to have the ability to share their knowledge with their parents. Since UNK is in the process of starting to deliver snacks to local after school programs, I would like to give the kids the opportunity to create the snacks themselves, when possible. I would also like to see us include nutritional information and recipes for the kids to take home.