The kitchen of a nutritional education center in National City recently received a makeover, allowing it to serve more South County families through its programs, increasing overall community health through the education of nutrition.
The remodel of the “healthier together” teaching kitchen at Olivewood Gardens & Learning Center took four months to complete and is back open to the public. Its reopening on N Avenue was celebrated last month.
“Our long-term goal is to change the conversation around food and nutrition,” said Center Executive Director Jen Nation. “We want to be a part of the solution of obesity locally and help families in our community make healthier choices when it comes to food.”
Modifications to the kitchen were done by Lars Remodeling & Design and included flipping the kitchen, making the space more conducive to learning by allowing students to watch teachers cook, improving the learning process. In addition, the food pantry was reduced in size in order to fit more families around the counter space.
“There’s an aspect of everything we do that ends up in the kitchen,” Nation said. “The kitchen is the heart of what we do.”
The bulk of the programs that Olivewood Gardens offers focus on food, teaching the significance of healthy eating and cooking. They include the Chefcitos program for children ages five to 12, adult cooking classes and the bilingual Cooking for Salud program, which use locally grown organic produce.
Cooking for Salud is a seven-week, hands-on program that teaches families the importance of change in healthy cooking and eating habits.
In the end they graduate with the knowledge of and become self-dubbed “kitchenistas.”
Since the program began in 2012 there have been 200 graduates.
“What makes our program really unique is we work with local chefs to help with our programs,” Nation said. “They donate their time to Olivewood through Cooking for Salud and other fundraising dinners.”
Chefs include Christina Ng of Chinita’s Pies, Flor Franco of Flor’s on Fifth, Joe Pastry of Water’s Fine Food and Catering, Kevin Templeton of Barley Mash, Claudia Sandoval (winner MasterChef season 6), and Sam the Cooking Guy.
The remodel cost $200,000, the majority of which Nation said came from South Bay donors who use the program.
The center offers frequent field trips, weekly public tours and a monthly open house. To make a reservation contact them at (619) 434-4281 or via email at info@olivewoodgardens.org.
