SuperChefs Summer 2017 Final Report

SuperChefs enjoys their 9th year of Cookery success with new innovations and partners from professional sports to virtual reality. Our goal remains the same however...inspire and empower kids and young professionals to promote a healthier community in a fun and active environment.

1. Surrey School District 36 Summer Camps

Throughout the course of the summer, SuperChefs held a total of 11 four-day camps over seven weeks for youth most in need in Surrey School District 36: the largest school district in British Columbia. Our program was provided free of charge and made possible by the help of numerous sponsors, donors and partners, including funding provided by the Canada Student Summer Jobs Program, which has been of crucial importance for SuperChefs for seven years, and allowed us to hire 17 high school and university students to run this program for the summer. In seven weeks of camps, we were able to engage 201 kids from over 20 elementary schools to the program, teaching them knife and other cooking skills, the importance of nutrition and engrossing them in physical activity to supplement a healthy lifestyle.

Our Level 1 program curriculum focused on basic cooking skills and cooking family foods from scratch, such as pizza and pasta. Our UBC Land & Food Systems and Dietetics students introduced campers to the concepts of a healthy diet, the importance of oral health and how to be conscious consumers. Finally, our basketball coaches facilitated an enjoyable way for the kids to be active. An additional facet to our Level 1 program this year was introduced by our partnership with an interactive virtual reality gaming company, Blue Goji. These games were hooked up to a stationary exercise bike and introduced the campers to another fun and active form of exercise. This was an effective partnership, as it allowed the campers that were disinterested in basketball to remain active and have fun at the same time. While this intrigued many kids, the majority of kids still chose to participate in basketball. This Level 1 program was run at both of our two locations in SD36: Queen Elizabeth Secondary and Sullivan Heights Secondary. The use of two locations allowed us to impact children from different neighbourhoods that wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to participate in these programs.

Our Level 2 program is for children that had run through our Level 1 curriculum in the prior year. This allowed us to see how much the children retained from the Level 1 program and introduce them to new, international flavour profiles as well as further their culinary and nutritional education. The Level 2 curriculum included ethnic dishes from India, Italy, China, Greece, and Mexico, as well as an education in the importance of local farming, the anatomy and different types of grains, and further emphasis on oral health and the effect of sugar on one’s teeth. The final day of the cooking program allowed the kids to use their imagination and creativity to create their own burger, exploring all the different flavours they had been exposed to and combine them with flavours with which they had already been familiar. The Level 2 program was capped off with a field trip that took the campers to Granville Island to see a collection of local food products, Stanley Park to have some participate in physical activity, and finally the Westin Bayshore Hotel and Resort to observe how a commercial kitchen operates and introduce them to the SuperChefs branded Westin Kids Eat Well Menu—a global brand standard.

2. Special Events

SuperChefs partnered up with the CFL’s BC Lions Football Club, MasterChef Canada Season 2 winner, David Jorge, and Joseph Richard Group, in order to provide lunch for the BC Lions after practice on June 21. UBC Dietetics students provided the menu for this lunch as an ideal pre-game meal. Lunch was served by our student employees, as well as seven children that had participated in the Level 1 SuperChefs program during 2016. This was a very successful event, as it resulted in over 13 million impressions, gaining attention from the Vancouver Sun, National Post, Calgary Herald and Global News among others.

In another local event, SuperChefs also participated in Surrey’s Fusion Festival during which performed at the Safeway Cooking Stage on July 22 and 23. We demonstrated how to grind your own meat and make a burger from scratch. Using the help of some campers over the first few weeks of the cookery camps and BC Lions Steven Adekolou, Solomon Elimimian, and Marco Iannuzzi, we were able to hand out 150 sample turkey sliders topped off with homemade pickled vegetables, BBQ sauce, and garlic aioli.

3. Results and Program Metrics

SuperChefs was able to gather impact results on several target objectives of the cookery from 196 campers. The results are listed below:

SuperChefs was able to gather impact results on several target objectives of the cookery from 196 campers.

SuperChefs Summer 2017 Final Report

SuperChefs enjoys their 9th year of Cookery success with new innovations and partners from professional sports to virtual reality. Our goal remains the same however...inspire and empower kids and young professionals to promote a healthier community in a fun and active environment.

1. Surrey School District 36 Summer Camps

2. Special Events

3. Results and Program Metrics

4. Program Sponsors and Partners