Friday, December 28, 2007
These kids are cooking up 'a difference'
Twenty-five children from a chefs school in Salem helped the struggling in Roanoke.
Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times
Students from Salem's Young Chef Academy help Ronnie Wilson with his tray at the Roanoke Rescue Mission
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A group of youngsters cooked for Roanoke's homeless Thursday, rolling up their sleeves for six hours of messy kitchen work undertaken in the enduring spirit of the season.
The pupils of the Salem-based Young Chefs Academy, a tuition-funded cooking school for children, traveled across town to the Rescue Mission, a privately run emergency shelter on which hundreds of adults and children depend for food, housing and support.
Two things were accomplished. Between 400 and 500 people in transitional housing ate well. And 25 youngsters 7 to 12 years old, many from comfortable suburban homes, nourished a hunger to help those with less.
Kitchen supervisor Sandra Eanes said she found the young volunteers focused and skillful.
"We made 1,400 dumplings, and they hand cut all of them," she said.
The dumplings went with chicken and all the trimmings for lunch. By midafternoon, the crew of volunteers turned to preparing dinners of barbecued beef and beans.
"We are helping people that have no home," said Emily Hulak, 11, while shredding beef with her close friend Hannah Ruth Wellons, also 11.
When the meat was ripped sufficiently fine, somebody dumped a glob of sauce in the tub, and the children mooshed it all together with their hands. A couple of feet away, a separate team opened beans with an industrial-sized manual can opener, while others wiped tables in the dining room.
The Rescue Mission is accustomed to running on volunteers, but this group stood out because they were so young, so numerous and so skilled in cuisine, said Lee Clark, director of development and administration at the mission.
One resident found the lunch splendid.
"This was better than a lot of the stuff we have," said Clara Ballard, 24.
With a baby in her arms, she said the mission had given her stable lodging and support to bounce back from a host of struggles she attributed to a lack of discipline and life skills. In her fourth month of residency, she said her stay would soon end with her moving to an apartment. She spoke of plans to study computers and work.
"The mission will help you when nobody else will," she said. "People are helping people here."
Barbara Filip, who owns the chefs school, said the students benefited from a chance to employ their skills in such areas as preparation, baking, salad making, stove-top work and dining room support, while learning what it takes to feed the hungry.
And each was allowed to bring a buddy. Filip envisions the school engaging in an annual community act of service similar to Thursday's offering.
"Our motto is, 'Kids can cook up some difference,' " Filip said.
Indeed, they did, the mission staff said.
