Staff writer
During spring break, some Hillsboro elementary and middle school students are taking their time off to do cooking and crafts with residents at Parkside Homes during an event called “Grandma’s Kitchen and Crafts.”
Director of dining services Rob Scott, who is directing the cooking classes, said that the first day of classes Tuesday was full of kids excited to learn.
“Over half of the kids had been here at our numerous other kids activities,” Scott said, “so that was pretty cool.”
The reason for the cooking activities, Scott said, was to teach young kids basic cooking and craft skills while also getting them to work with the residents.
“What I found is that people don’t have a lot of time to teach their kids, so we thought what a cool way to fill that need,” Scott said, “but also to give the residents something to help out with.”
Twenty-two students attended the first class Tuesday along with four residents who helped them make cookies and pizza.
For the cookies, the class used four new mixers that were purchased by Parkside with a community grant.
A stove also will be purchased with grant money, and will be placed in one of Parkside’s main building’s old dining rooms.
The purpose of the stove is to show kids during cooking classes how to use a stove most likely found in a house, rather than in a large kitchen in a nursing home.
“Most of them won’t work much with commercial equipment in their life, unless they go into the culinary field,” Scott said. “We want to be able to teach them on home equipment.”
Elementary students will have one more class Thursday along with middle school students. Middle school students will have a second class on Friday.
Scott said they will be cooking wraps and fruit kabobs in the morning.
Sedgwick County Zoo’s traveling education division on Africa will present a program on Africa, including live animals.
Middle school students will have the opportunity to take a culinary essentials class with Scott at the nursing home on Thursday and Friday.
“We’ll go over basic cooking skills, how to read recipes and sanitation,” Scott said. “The basic knowledge you need to know.”