“Community Cooking Club” to benefit The Exchange

100 Women Who Care Caledon sponsors program run by Palgrave United Community Kitchen and Gratitude for Food Caledon

By ZACHARY ROMAN

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A new cooking club has all the ingredients to make great things happen in Caledon.

Gratitude for Food Caledon, a subcommittee of ecoCaledon, and the Palgrave United Community Kitchen (PUCK) have come together to launch a “Community Cooking Club”.

The program is being made possible thanks to funding from 100 Women Who Care Caledon.

From January to June, the club will meet on the last Thursday of the month at the community kitchen, which is located inside the Palgrave United Church (34 Pine Avenue). 

At each club meeting, attendees will learn how to cook a new plant-based meal. Attendees will get to try the meal themselves, and they can feel great because they'll also be making meals that will be donated to The Exchange. 

The Exchange is run by Caledon Community Services (CCS) and serves as Caledon's food bank in addition to providing a variety of social services.

There's already a waiting list for the first meeting of the Community Cooking Club, and those interested in attending a future meeting can indicate their interest by calling 905-880-0303 or emailing info@palgravekitchen.org.

PUCK volunteer Barb Imrie said she's thankful to 100 Women Who Care Caledon for supporting the Community Cooking Club. She said the club will help provide access to healthy food to more people in Caledon.

Lucrezia Chiappetta and Carolyn Vallejo are the co-chairs of ecoCaledon's Gratitude for Food subcommittee and Chiappetta explained the subcommittee is focused on food-related climate solutions. 

She said the cooking club will be great because it's going to include the use of extra food from local farms that use regenerative agricultural practices.

“We can take that (food), we can use the Palgrave United Community Kitchen, which is a certified kitchen, to make a meal that can then be donated to The Exchange, which in turn helps with food insecurity,” said Chiappetta.

She said it's great to be a part of a project that has a positive impact on the environment and those in need in the community.

“It's one of those great full-circle projects where we're able to tackle climate change but also help the community as well,” said Chiappetta. “We all love to cook and get together and at the end of the day we're also doing something really awesome.”

In the future, Chiappetta hopes to see more funding come in to grow programs like the Community Cooking Club, since it has proved to be a popular one that's good for the community.

“We love doing these projects, but a lot of it just comes down to needing the money to provide supplies and the rental of the space,” she said.