Field trips are always fun – but they are even more fun if there is food involved.
A small group of students ventured out to Berkeley County School District’s MenRiv building last week for a special cooking class provided by the Young Chefs Academy of Charleston.
Young Chefs is located in Mt. Pleasant and is a franchise that teaches children the joy and value of cooking through classes, camps, field trips and parties.
Young Chefs also offers team-building opportunities for adults, and previously did one with BCSD Superintendent Dr. Anthony Dixon and cabinet members during the 2022-2023 school year. Dixon said the adults enjoyed it, so he thought it would be a great opportunity to bring Young Chefs back to work with the district’s 2023 Turnaround Achievement Award recipients. VIEW PHOTOS.
Last year’s group enjoyed it just as much as the adults, so Young Chefs returned to the district on Wednesday to work with the 2024 Turnaround Achievement Award recipients inside of MenRiv's kitchen.
The Turnaround award program is a long-running recognition that honors students who have previously experienced challenges and hardships – both at home and at school – but made the decision to literally “turn it around” for themselves and make sure they stay on the right track to get a high school diploma.
These students are now excelling in their classes, both academically and behavior-wise. They received their awards back in April, but Turnaround students were invited to participate in a fun cooking activity led by Young Chefs owners/partners Nancy Whelan and Diane Tausig on May 29.
The students donned aprons and got to make their own personal pizzas, and then decorated cupcakes. Along the way, the adults talked to the students about some of educational aspects of cooking – like understanding units of measurement and how yeast makes dough rise. They also went over the artistic components of cooking, like being able to make the pizza dough into whatever flat shape they wanted, and being able to decorate the pizzas to their liking.
Students also got to be creative with the cupcake decorations; they were charged with trying to make their cupcakes look like little mini campfires.
Of course, the students got to devour all their creations at the end.