It’s a tray takeover in Chicago! Cooking up Change is a healthy cooking contest that challenges high school student chefs to create healthy, great-tasting school meals.
The Healthy School Campaign team spoke with Krista Ward of Hoorary Purée, a natural vegetable purée for parents and schools looking for convenient ways to add more vegetables to kids’ meals. Hooray Purée products currently include carrot, butternut squash and spinach purees designed to boost kids’ veggie consumption.
A longtime fan of HSC, the purée brand became a first-time Cooking up Change partner-level sponsor this year. Ward explained that Cooking up Change’s expanding competition and the young chefs’ creativity drew in Hooray Purée’s support.
“Giving kids an opportunity to learn a trade, especially one like cooking, that is so vitally important for living healthy, is great!” she said. “It is important to show that you can eat healthy regardless of what type of budget you may have. Combining the two in a fun curriculum and competition is an effort worth applauding.”
Hooray Purée’s commitment to childhood nutrition closely aligns with the creativity and fun encompassed in Cooking up Change. The contest “essentially teaches the students the same things, so our visions are perfectly aligned,” she said. Ward added that Cooking up Change “really does empower them to make good choices and have fun while doing so.”
Hooray Purée is supportive of school efforts to improve the food served to students. “Talking about different ways to boost nutrition, while being creative in doing so, is always a great conversation and one that leads to other school districts making a stronger effort to improve their programs as well,” she said.
Student chefs in Cooking up Change
“We have been supporters of Cooking up Change for several years, but made the decision to step up with a sponsorship this year because of the relationship we have established with Healthy School Campaign,” she added. “The benefits are intangible in that we know we are helping, in a small way, to make the program possible for the kids, but also tangible in that our name will be more recognized due to the excellent visibility that the sponsorship has made available.”
Thanks to Hooray Hooray Purée and our team of generous supporters for Cooking up Change!
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Be sure to check out stories from Cooking up Change alums, chef mentors, and sponsors in these videos!
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