Cooking for Change

Cooking for Change! Schools Program

Cooking for Change! is Bendigo Foodshare’s exciting hands-on cooking program, currently operating in schools across Central Victoria.

For schools, this program gets students involved in their local community by working as a team to make meals for those doing it tough. It’s fun, meets curriculum outcomes, and provides an opportunity for local community service. Cooking for Change! can fit into many programs, including VCAL. Schools can either purchase one of our program packages which includes the facilitation support of our qualified teacher and chef, or, cook independently for us.

Teachers said Cooking for Change! helps to transform the classroom into a workplace-like environment, meets learning outcomes and helps students “think about the difference they are making in the community, (as) a lot of people are doing it tough”.

For students, they said the program was beneficial to “learn about Bendigo Foodshare and how to cook food”, and the best part was “cooking for a good reason”.

How does Cooking for Change! work?

Program packages

Over a two-three hour session in your school’s kitchen facilities for approximately 10-15 students, our qualified teacher and chef will guide students through a hands-on cooking session. Students will pick-up cooking and nutrition tips and work together to produce 50 meals to support their local community.

Upon completion, students will sample their creation for lunch. The remaining meals are then packaged by the students and donated back to Bendigo Foodshare to support food relief efforts across Central Victoria.

Schools can either purchase:

1. An all-inclusive program package, which includes everything you need to get the program happening in your school – including facilitation from our qualified teacher and chef, ingredients, containers
2. Teacher/chef supported program package, which includes just the facilitation support of our qualified teacher and chef – and you supply the ingredients, containers and labels based on one of our recipes

Independent cooking

We know many schools already cook and have all the resources they need – through classes such as Food Technology. To add a community service element to your cook up, you can donate the meals to Bendigo Foodshare afterwards. This can happen at anytime, and all you need to do is follow hygiene requirements and package, label and deliver the meals appropriately. There’s no cost to be part of this.

Presentation

Through a tailored presentation delivered by the Bendigo Foodshare team, students will learn about the work of Bendigo Foodshare, food security and food waste, and how to connect with local food relief agencies. To book a presentation, click here.