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Kids Who Cook | Fruits and Vegetables | Farm Connect Montana | MTPRx

Kids Who Cook!

Kids Who Cook! (KWC!) is a dynamic school- and community-based food and nutrition education program designed to empower kids and their families to make positive life choices that benefit personal and community health. KWC! provides hands-on experiential learning in the classroom to equip kids with knowledge to increase culinary skills and nutrition, then provides resources and referrals for students and families to interact with the local food system to create lifelong behavior change.

Kids Who Cook developed as a partnership among Registered Dietitians, Missoula County Schools and Farm Connect when the community expressed the need to engage children through hands-on nutrition education related to food, health, and nutrition in schools where food insecurity and poor nutrition are prevalent. KWC teaches kids the importance of healthy eating, food safety, and the benefits of fresh, locally sourced foods, and sends them home with a take-home back to recreate the recipe and lesson at home.

In 2024 KWC! Served over 400 students in 1st – 5th grade through over 20 hands-on cooking education classes in classrooms, after-school programs, lunchrooms and farmers markets. Our curriculum is developed by registered dietitians and emphasizes the importance of locally sourced food.

For more information about our program or how to get involved, please reach out to:

Desmet School Program Highlight

The Kids Who Cook program is underway at DeSmet school for the second year in a row. Farm Connect is partnering with Erica Rubino, a registered dietitian with Nutrition Focused Health, to teach nutrition education to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at Desmet. Students learn how to make new recipes every week that focus on a variety of food safety, cooking, and nutrition themes. These classes are meant to empower and teach easy, healthy, and affordable recipes so the kids can learn how to prepare healthy options for themselves and their families by using recipes that contain common household ingredients. Students also go home with a “take-home” bag that contains the ingredients we used in class to make the recipe again at home with friends and family.This program formed with the goal of increasing food and nutrition knowledge among students while bridging connections among nutrition experts and resources in Montana communities. Feedback from students, parents, and teachers at DeSmet reveal how impactful this program has been for students and the community.

Read this recent Missoulian article about the DeSmet Kids Who Cook program

Curriculum Sample