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To promote nutritious choices and raise money for their primary school cooking programme, Caring Cooks of Jersey have launching their first Healthy Eating Week June with activities including a 'Let's do lunch' initiative and a smoothie bike ride.
The local charity is inviting businesses, schools, nurseries, clubs and associations as well as individuals to get together this week and to share a healthy dish.
Caring Cooks hope that the 'Let's do Lunch' initiative will help them deliver their mission - "to positively empower and influence the future health of our Island’s children and young people by supporting the community, to make nutritious and tasty food part of daily life"- whilst raising much needed funds for their programmes. Fundraising packs are available online and in hard copies and are packed with tips, posters, bunting and quick and simple healthy lunch ideas.
Pictured: Melissa Nobrega, CEO of Caring Cooks of Jersey.
Melissa Nobrega,the charity CEO, explained: "We are running this first Healthy Eating Week at the same time as the British Nutrition Foundation. It is the main body in the UK and we work closely with them. Through the week, we want to invite people to make healthy choices for children's lunchboxes but also for themselves. We are excited to have local businesses involved as 30 companies have said they will be having healthy lunch dishes."
As part of the Healthy Eating week, two cafés in town, Flavour and Nude, have agreed to make donations to Caring Cooks for every salad or specials sold. The charity will hold a pop up stall in town with healthy treats on offer. On Wednesday, they will be parking their 'Smoothie Bike' at Voisins to give customers the chance to jump in the saddle and use pedal power to mix up a fruity snack.
Emily Moore, Head of Marketing at Voisins said: “We are very excited to welcome the Smoothie bike in store, and raise awareness of the hugely important work carried out by Caring Cooks. Healthy eating and our new activewear department go hand-in-hand supporting the growing movement we have seen towards people embracing a healthier lifestyle.”
The charity also aims to have the children directly involved with a Healthy Heroes day. They will be invited to dress up as the hero of their choosing to promote healthy habits such as drinking water and exercising.
Founded in 2014, after a mum decided to cook a meal once a week for a family, Caring Cooks has since launched a community cooking programme and a kitchen garden project in schools. Ms Nobrega hopes to see the Healthy Eating Week become an annual event as it will help raise the profile of the charity as well as funds, especially for the 'Let’s Get Cooking Programme' in primary schools.
Ms Nobrega explains: "The programme is teaching children lifetime, simple skills to prepare healthy meals. They don't know what is good for their bodies or what are the healthy options to fizzy drinks, sweets and such. We also see a lot of young people step into adult life without learning how to cook because someone has always done if for them. We are trying to change that by teaching them at an early age. We try to reinvigorate the habit of cooking by passing down skills from the 60s or 70s that used to be passed down from generation to generation.
"We do everything through donations and the Let's Get Cooking Programme costs £71 per children for a year. It is not much so every penny counts! We currently have 629 children benefiting from the programme and our vision is that in 2025 we will be able to get all 7,500 pupils in primary schools in it."
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