Youth in Madison County, Kentucky are increasingly being faced with issues related to their independence and accountability in many facets of life. They are not equipped with the basic life skills necessary to succeed, and kitchen or cooking skills are no exception.  Local families struggle to help their students meet these needs for a variety of reasons. One primary challenge is finding available time in a busy family schedule to dedicate toward teaching these kinds of skills and some families are faced with limited resources or food insecurities.

Super Star Chef Cooking Camp provides youth twelve hours of instructed cooking time over three days. They learn a wide variety of skills that include food safety, knife handling, kitchen appliance awareness, measuring techniques, physical activity, and leadership opportunities. This course introduces them to many diverse recipes prepared with fresh fruits and vegetables.  These recipes are economical as they have limited ingredients which are readily available and offer youth an opportunity to try foods they have not likely tried before.

This program is targeted for youth ages 9-12, Madison County had 18 pre-teen youth complete all three days of the Super Star Chef program offered this year. Super Star Chef was presented as an office collaboration between the Family and Consumer Sciences Agent, the Madison County FCS Program Assistants, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP-Ed) Assistant Senior, and the 4H Program Assistant.

Youth in the Super Star Chef Cooking Camp completed a pre and post survey at the beginning and end of the camp to gauge their knowledge and experience, as well as confidence levels. Overall, each youth showed growth, the class average in knowledge was 3.3 points. (One youth received two perfect scores!) 72% of youth noted growth in content that considers their level of confidence in the kitchen. The class average of growth in confidence was 5.8125 points, the youth with the most growth grew 25 points! The last area measured youth behavior change; the class average showed growth at 2.647 points.  This component measures the youths’ intentions to continue using the foods, recipes, and techniques that they have learned throughout the course of Super Star Chef.