My Experience Working with Big Brothers Big Sisters and summerlunch+
Written By: Rachel Levy MPH(c) | Dietetic Intern with summerlunch+
Hello! My name is Rachel Levy, I am an aspiring Registered Dietitian, and a first year student in the Masters of Public Health in Nutrition and Dietetics program at the University of Toronto. For the last three months, I have had the privilege of working with summerlunch+, as a part of my dietetic internship arranged by U of T. During this time, I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of interesting tasks, including helping with the summerlunch+ social media pages, developing new vegetarian recipes to use for our programming, and creating educational modules for children with Type 1 Diabetes in partnership with Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. However, one of the most rewarding opportunities I have been granted during my placement at summerlunch+ has been working with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program to host weekly informational and cooking-based Zoom sessions with children ages 5-15.
The Big Brothers Big Sisters program takes place on an eight-week schedule. During these eight weeks, children are taught a variety of educational content and participate in a number of interactive activities surrounding a particular food-related topic of the week. Such topics include learning about Food Waste, Healthy Snacking, Eating for Mental Health, Seed to Table, and many more. During the weekly Zoom sessions, which take place on Thursday evenings from 5:30pm to 6:30pm, we briefly go through a few slides of educational content with participants, and then we get to the fun part: cooking two recipes from scratch that are related to the theme of the week. These recipes range anywhere from a Kitchen Sink Salad, to Homemade Granola, to Whole Wheat Pizza Pops. To be expected, the cooking portion of the Zoom session is usually everyone’s favourite part.
As I mentioned above, I have found leading the Zoom sessions for the children in Big Brothers Big Sisters to be extremely rewarding. These meetings not only help me to practice my teaching and cooking demonstration skills, but they provide an invaluable opportunity to bond with the children in a manner that is more rare during a work from home placement. Each week, participants share how they are finding the weekly activities, which dishes they are enjoying most, what they are learning about being in the kitchen, and nutrition factoids that they find interesting. Children will also raise their virtual hands and ask questions about the recipes we are making throughout our calls, or even share little tidbits about themselves in relation to what we are learning. For example, I have learned that a number of participants tried cottage cheese for the first time during the week we made Cheesy Baked Ziti (and unsurprisingly, everyone enjoyed it).
There is something very special about interacting with these children over the shared experience of food and nutrition, even via Zoom. Seeing the participants’ excitement and eagerness to cook, bake, and learn new nutrition information each week has been an extremely fulfilling experience that I am sure I will carry with me in my future placements as I become a Registered Dietitian.