Lewisporte's Junior Chef Academy

What's cooking at the Salvation Army corps in Lewisporte, N.L.? A fun new program for youth—the junior chef academy! 

Major Darlene Burt, corps officer, and Lorelei Cole, children and youth ministries director, share how these cooking classes for kids and teens are building relationships with families and raising the profile of the Army in this small town.

Transcript

Kristin Ostensen  

This is the Salvationist podcast. I’m Kristin Ostensen. How you do reach the youth in your community, especially when funds are limited? Since the pandemic, the Salvation Army corps in Lewisporte, Newfoundland, has made a big effort to engage the next generation through various programs, from pop-up shops to drumming circles. Their most recent initiative is a junior chef academy, which has already proved incredibly popular. In this episode, Major Darlene Burt, corps officer, and Lorelei Cole, children and youth ministries director, give us all the details.

Hi, Darlene. Hi, Lorelei. Thank you for coming on the Salvationist podcast. 

Darlene Burt  

Thank you. You're welcome.

Lorelei Cole  

Thanks for having us. 

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah, of course. So first off, can you tell us a little bit about your community and your corps?

Darlene Burt  

Sure, well, Lewisporte is kind of in the central, smack dab in the central part of Newfoundland. It’s about 11 kilometres off the Trans-Canada Highway. And it's a community of how many people would we say? 4,000?

Lorelei Cole  

Between three and four, yeah.

Darlene Burt  

3,000 and 4000 people. And it's kind of a hub of the area. We do have a little mall and some fast food outlets and that kind of thing. Tim Hortons, and McDonald's … you know, we have that kind of stuff here in town. It has, you know, three schools. But we kind of serve the area—kids from other communities in the surrounding areas would come into Lewisporte for school and those kinds of things. So, yeah. It was a thriving community. There was a lot of, the boat that used to go between here and Labrador was very popular at one time. But that's not the case anymore. So, you know, there's been some downturn in the economy and that kind of thing. But it's a rural, rural community in Newfoundland.

Kristin Ostensen  

And how would you describe the corps there?

Lorelei Cole  

It's an average size-corps, mostly senior population. You have, you know, some young people and children, but average attendance on a Sunday is mostly seniors.

Kristin Ostensen  

So, I can see how maybe the idea for a youth cooking class would be a wonderful way of broadening that. Can you tell me a bit about this youth cooking class? And where did the idea come from?

Darlene Burt  

Well, I think we go back to just when COVID happened. When we shut down for COVID, for me anyway, I wondered if, you know, do we have a purpose in town? “If we never opened again, would we be missed?” kind of thing, right. So, as a result of that, we applied for an innovation grant. And we did these “pop-up shops” to kind of, I guess, to increase our visibility in the town.

Kristin Ostensen  

What exactly is that? That sounds really neat.

Darlene Burt  

Well, we did a pizza drive-thru, yeah. And we made up this pizza box with, it was a family game night. And we did, at the end of the school year, we gave out ice cream one night. And we did the Doughnut Day, we gave out doughnuts. We did a barbecue. We did several things like that to kind of increase the visibility in the town. And so then, when the next one came up then, that's when we applied for the youth cooking class, and for funding for the youth cooking class and for “Rhythm Rec,” it was called. Lorelei is a drummer. 

Kristin Ostensen  

Oh cool!

Darlene Burt  

She kind of made up this program. We bought, we had buckets with a yoga ball on the top and drumsticks. And so it was like a rhythm thing with Christian music. So, we did that and we're just finishing that. And then the youth and the children's cooking class came as a result of that, through the innovation grant.

Kristin Ostensen  

It sounds like what you're doing is really oriented around connecting with youth.

Darlene Burt  

Well, we need to. The corps will die if something is not done to invigorate the youth population or the families in our community. 

Kristin Ostensen 

Yeah, that's absolutely true. So, when did this program launch? And how many people have been involved with it? 

Lorelei Cole  

So, we launched last month, in April, and we had two classes of younger children, age seven to 12, and there was 12 per class. And now this week, we're going to start with the teens. And that's another 12. So, that'll be 36 altogether. 

Kristin Ostensen  

Wow, that's really good.

Darlene Burt  

Our class filled up within 24 hours—our three classes filled up within 24 hours. It was just like, when we advertised, right—it just happened very quickly, and we had to turn people away.

Kristin Ostensen 

Oh, wow. Why do you think there was so much interest?

Darlene Burt  

I don't know, I guess something different. The community still has a trust in The Salvation Army, I think so they can drop their kids off here and not worry that, you know, they're going to be taken care of and that kind of stuff. So, and Lorelei does another kids program. You know, we do have contact with families in the community.

Kristin Ostensen  

Hmm, OK. And how was the program advertised to get that kind of response?

Lorelei Cole  

It was very minimal, actually. Because we said, well, we’ll just put it on Facebook first. We advertised in our church bulletin. And like we said, I mean, the classes filled up so quickly that there was no need to do any other advertising beyond that. 

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah. That's so cool. And how many people does it take to run this program? 

Lorelei Cole  

There's nine volunteers besides Major Darlene and myself. But they all come, like, we usually have about five adults here at a time.

Kristin Ostensen 

OK. 

Darlene Burt

Each week.

Lorelei Cole  

Yeah. 

Kristin Ostensen

And what does a typical class look like? What's involved?

Lorelei Cole  

Well, the kids come over after school. And we'll cook a main dish, a side dish and a dessert normally. So, and then they finish at supper time, at five, and when their parents come, they go home with the meal for their families.

Kristin Ostensen 

Oh, that's great. And what kind of stuff have you guys made with the kids?

Lorelei Cole  

We've done spaghetti and meatballs, sloppy Joe's, chicken quesadillas, and mini pizzas—individual pizzas.

Kristin Ostensen 

Oh nice. Very crowd-pleasing food, for sure.

Lorelei Cole  

Yeah. So, we're going to try some more complicated recipes now with the teens. 

Kristin Ostensen

OK, yeah. That's cool. 

Lorelei Cole  

Get them following recipes and that kind of thing.

Darlene Burt  

We're hoping we’ll be less hands-on kind of thing with the teens. Like, with the children, you kind of had to, you know, be right there with them. Right? 

Kristin Ostensen

This is true, yes. 

Darlene Burt  

Yeah. But hopefully with the teens, it'll be more—but then who knows? [laughs] It could be, you know, that we have to give them more attention than the little ones.

Kristin Ostensen  

And what kind of feedback have you had from the kids and from their parents so far? 

Lorelei Cole                                                                                                                 

The kids really enjoyed it, and they were so well behaved. Like, it was amazing. And the parents have called, asking for recipes and with feedback that they really enjoyed the food that the kids brought home and know that their kids want, and they want to do it again. They’re hoping that we'll, you know, that we'll be able to run the program again. 

Kristin Ostensen  

That's great. And how would you say that this program has impacted your corps so far? I mean, I know, it's still early days, but what kind of things are you seeing?

Darlene Burt  

Well, I think, you know, anything like that generates some kind of, I don't know if it's enthusiasm or interest or—and, some of our people, I'm sure, are thinking, you know, why are we doing cooking classes? And, what does that have to do with the mission, or transforming the community for Jesus? Or whatever, you know, cooking classes. But I said to someone, when I was discussing that with them, you know, it could mean a lot of things. It could mean that somebody might put extra money in the kettle at Christmastime, because we did this, right? It could, it increases our visibility in the community. Who knows if one of these families are in need in some way—whether it's emotionally or spiritually or physically, you know, for whatever—that they would reach out to us? And while some of our children that are in the class come to church, the majority don't. So, hopefully we're doing something to influence them for Christ—planting a seed. 

Lorelei Cole  

It's also impacted our volunteers as well. We've had some people that have come that don't normally help with other things within the church. But when we asked about cooking classes, they were all on board, and they've been here. And some of our young people have come and helped. So, yeah, it's been great.

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah, it sounds like it's really about making connection points, you know—both with people out in the community, but also within your own corps. That's really great that you have those people who are finding a new way to serve, too. So, you mentioned you recently wrapped up your first class. Did you have any kind of graduation ceremony for the kids?

Lorelei Cole  

Yes, we did. We had certificates printed with a little graduation for junior chef academy, and we’ll present them with a small gift as well. We had aprons done for them, with their names.

Kristin Ostensen  

Oh, very cool. That’s such a nice memento for them to take away. Now, of course, the classes have already been so popular. What hopes do you have for the program going forward?

Darlene Burt  

Well, I’m moving, so [laughs]. So, for me, I'm going to leave it in Lorelei’s hands and also to discuss it with the incoming officer. But, you know, there's other ideas, and actually one of them—the officers that I know in the States that I follow on Facebook, they've been doing youth cooking classes about the same time as us. And they had advertised their youth cooking classes were “going dessert.” So, the next time they did it for four weeks, or six weeks—I don't know how many weeks they do it for—they were doing just desserts. So, it would be neat to change it up, you know, because it is, for us, it is an expense that we are covering through the innovation grant. But I think there's ways that you could get sponsors even, for weeks—like, businesses in the community or grocery stores or whatever—you know, hopefully something like that. And even our corps people I'm sure would help, if we needed food supplies or whatever. They're pretty good like that; if we need something, they will support. Once you start something, I think you got to keep the momentum going.

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah. And it sounds like you built up some momentum through the pop-up program. And now that has continued through this. What do you think Lorelei?

Lorelei Cole  

Oh, my hope is definitely that we can do something with it moving forward. And like I said, we've had so much interest and we've had to turn away kids. So, I mean, there's definitely still interest in the program. The financial piece is, obviously, the concern, but I'm sure that, you know, we can work that out somewhere.

Kristin Ostensen  

Well, thank you so much for your time today. It was really neat to hear about this program and how it's impacting the kids in your community and the corps as well. 

Lorelei Cole  

Thank you. 

Darlene Burt  

Thank you.

Kristin Ostensen

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Salvationist podcast. For more episodes, visit Salvationist.ca/podcast.