Hello and this week I'm your host Monica Reinagel and this week I'm sharing some highlights of a conversation I'm

sharing some highlights of a conversation I recently had with Lesia Mervina, who is the co-founder with Olga David of a program called I Cook after school.

This is a hands-on extracurricular program for elementary school kids

where cooking and kitchen skills are used not just as a way to talk to kids

about nutrition and the importance of healthy eating, which is important

enough, but also as a fun way to teach math, reading, chemistry, physics, problem solving,

and more.

I was so excited to learn about this program because it makes sense to me on so many levels.

First, teaching kids to cook is a very effective way to get them excited about healthy foods.

Secondly, knowing how to cook is a really important life skill and one that so many of today's

adults never really learned to their detriment.

And finally, it is a super fun and effective way to reinforce the subjects they're learning

in school. I Cook After School began in 2014 as an

after-school cooking program for children at elementary schools in the Chicago area.

By March of this year the program had expanded to six states but when the

global pandemic closed schools Lesia and Olga nimbly converted their

program to virtual programs which are now available to parents

and school systems nationwide.

The company has two registered dietitians on staff and several of their culinary instructors are also dieticians.

Look, kids actually love to cook. We may think of it as a chore, but they love it.

This has been something that I've used to keep my nieces and nephews entertained since they were very small.

It's how we spend time together.

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