Feeding Body & Soul: One Family Illinois Teens and Families are Learning Lifelong Culinary Skills
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Healthy habits start with education, opportunity, and community. This summer, One Family Illinois is partnering with Rush University to bring all three into the kitchen.
Twice a week, nutrition students from Rush University meet at the Tim McCormick Community Center to lead hands-on cooking demonstrations for youth and families. Through delicious, nutritious recipes, our children are building skills that will support healthier lifestyles for years to come.
"My favorite part of leading these classes each week is seeing how excited the kids get when they try new foods and learn new kitchen skills," says Sarah Geer, a Rush nutrition student who leads weekly classes. "It is really rewarding seeing their confidance grow week after week."
Cooking Up Food & Fun!
Every Tuesday during the month of July, families are invited to cook side by side, with Rush’s nutrition students walking them through recipes and nutrition basics. Because space is limited to just a few families each week, the sessions stay small and personal, making it just as much about connection as it is about cooking.
Thursdays belong to the teens. Youth ages 12 to 18 get their own two hours in the kitchen, learning recipes and skills designed just for them while gaining some independence and confidence in the kitchen.
The cooking sessions come to life inside the Goya Learning Kitchen — a beautiful and modern in-house teaching kitchen generously donated by Goya Foods and built right into the Tim McCormick Community Center. Having a dedicated space like this, steps away from the Roosevelt Square Village homes, means families don't have to go far to learn, connect, and prepare healthy meals together.
Dig Into Dining!
The ingredients that fill the counters each week don’t come from far away either. Just across the street sits the Maxwell Street Community Garden, where youth and families grow their own fruits and vegetables. Fresh produce from the garden is brought in each week, allowing the children to turn what they’ve grown themselves into the meals they’re learning to cook, serving as a full circle lesson in where healthy comes from.
“Nutrition education helps families build lifelong healthy habits and learn that eating nutritionally balanced meals does not have to be complicated or expensive,” Geer says.
For One Family Illinois, this partnership that gives teens and families tools for a healthier future is a natural extension of its mission: to advance the safety and well-being of children by keeping siblings together in foster care, empowering youth, nurturing strong families, and partnering in the development of communities. Cooking and nutrition are life skills, and each week in the kitchen, our youth walk away with more than a new recipe, they gain confidence, iconnection, and a genuine understanding of how to nourish their bodies—and souls.
That's the work of One Family Illinois education team members, who design and host programs, like these cooking classes, to meet kids where they are and equip them with the knowledge and resources to thrive, one spoonful at a time.
Learn more about our partners:
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