Cooking Lessons Bring Food and Smiles to DDP Clients

During the week of February School Vacation, clients in both our School Age Group and our Adult Social Group in the Developmental Disabilities Program attended cooking lessons held at CFCS’s offices, hosted by Lovin’ Spoonfuls. Lovin’ Spoonfuls is a local agency that distributes healthy, fresh food via food rescue to community organizations like CFCS. Lovin’ Spoonfuls also offers a culinary education program that provides people with the food education, tools and know-how to feed themselves and their families.

During the cooking lesson, our clients worked together to cook a meal of vegetarian pumpkin chili, corn bread muffins and yogurt parfaits. Our clients enjoyed learning about the ingredients of the meal and assisting with the cooking process.

Some of the parents of our school-age clients mentioned to DDP staff that at home they have never been able to get their child to eat many of the ingredients that were in the pumpkin chili, but during the cooking class they ate their entire serving of chili. In addition, a client in our Adult Social Group went home and made the yogurt parfait recipe for her entire family. We were happy to see that giving our DDP clients the opportunity to assist with the cooking process made them more eager to try new foods.

This is the second year that Lovin’ Spoonfuls has provided their cooking series to our clients and both years it has been a huge success!