DENVER — As part of Denver Public Schools’ Extended Learning and Community Schools (ELCS) initiative, students are given the chance to expand their horizons through after-school programs focusing on everything from coding to cooking.
The program seeks to provide enriching experiences outside of standard school hours, bridging the gap between academic support at school and family life at home.
“We bring in outside providers to the community,” said Jesse Broadfoot, director for ELCS. “They’re not employed by the district, but they're great community partners to provide a service to students. We’re really looking for opportunities to give students experiences that they might not during the school day or at home.”
One such partner is Slow Food Denver, a nonprofit committed to creating change in the local food system and connecting people with where food comes from. Their youth education program, Seed to Plate, seeks to inspire students to develop healthy, lifelong eating habits.
“If you know how to feed yourself and cook for yourself, then it's something that you take with you your whole life,” said Dan Hayward, a classroom instructor for the Seed to Plate program at DCIS Fairmont and other schools in the city. “They really are involved with all the cooking process. They get to see raw ingredients and then the finished product at the end.”
Hayward starts his lessons rigorously going over knife safety and then teaches elementary and middle school students about building on flavors like sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
“They're exposed to different flavors and unusual, different recipes, and that really helps to broaden their horizons with food,” said Hayward. “The parents that come to pick them up, they tell me, ‘So and so really loved what you made last week. Tell me more about it. Why did you make that dish?’”
“Exposing them to cooking at an early age, they might be able to identify, 'Hey, this is a passion that I didn't even really know I had,'” said Broadfoot. “Students have support during the school day, they have support at home, and now we're bridging that gap between the school day and at home with after-school programming that will support families and their work schedules.”
Slow Food Denver is always looking for more volunteers and instructors. If you would like to help out, you can check out their schedule online.
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