Quota Cares Month—Top Winner
Quota International of Gridley

Northern California teens are learning how to budget and shop for groceries and make healthy food choices thanks to the Quotarians of Gridley, California, who used Quota Cares Month to begin a program called Tomorrow's Chef.

The series of weekly classes began in March with Flippin' Over Flapjacks, a one-day seminar where students learned a basic pancake recipe as well as how to add ingredients like chocolate, banana, and strawberry. Classes continued into May, featuring a new theme and instructor each week and ending with "You're Invited," a class where students learned how to plan a party from start to finish—including a segment on table etiquette.

The program launched after a lot of hard work by Gridley Quotarians. They raised $10,000 to stock the bare-bones community center kitchen with essentials like pots and pans as well as kitchen utensils needed by their volunteer instructors and students. The classes themselves were free to local teens, despite the "competition" charging up to $75 per class, and all food used throughout the program was covered by the club's fund.

Existing Quotarians taught most of the classes, but promotion brought volunteer teachers from local churches and families. None of these instructors were gourmet chefs, but they all came with plenty of kitchen know-how to offer the students of Tomorrow's Chef. Two have even become Quota club members in Gridley since the start of the program.

Classes were designed with teens in mind, especially those who wouldn't learn how to cook healthy meals at home. Students came primarily from existing programs at the local community center where the classes were held as well as the Community Day School in Gridley, which serves students expelled from the local public schools. In fact, the assistant chef for all of the Tomorrow's Chef classes was a 17-year-old former gang member who came to the club to complete court-ordered community service but loved working with the Quotarians and their teenage students so much that he has become an invaluable member of the team.

At the end of the class series, club members assembled cookbooks for the students, so they could make the recipes and skills they learned part of their everyday lives. Tomorrow's Chef was so successful this spring that summer classes were quickly planned, and other local groups asked to get involved and help this Quota program do even more for the teenagers of Gridley.

Besides learning how to make pasta, fruit smoothies, and pizza, this first set of students learned how to give back during their time with Quota by taking part in The Great American Bake Sale with the Gridley Quotarians this May. Students and club members baked cookies and brownies that were then sold during Gridley's Red Suspenders Day Parade on May 19. The money raised by the Quotarians and their young chefs became part of a national fund collected by children to feed children across the country, adding a very important life lesson to the education offered by Tomorrow's Chef.

To read or print the club's winning application, click here*.

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