Cooking Club: A path out of poverty

CINCINNATI (WKRC) -When neighborhoods are poor, it can be hard for young people to dream.

Some young people in a community with high levels of poverty see themselves in a different way because of an unusual club. It revolves around fresh food: making it, eating it, and taking it home.

Cooking at Oyler School has become the coolest club. Volunteers from La Soupe bring fresh food rescued from Kroger and Jungle Jim's to the after school program. They learn to cook meals for the family and it's a big part of "Cincinnati Gives a Crock." Each student has a donated crock pot. They get recipes and bagged ingredients to take home.

Senior Shakope Walker cooks for his sisters. Thursday, February 16, cooking club members took home salsa, chips, and hummus. For 12-year-old Jacob Lewis cooking club fits into his dream of having his own bakery and studying business in college. Jacob knows dreams can come true.

His brother Chris is a senior. In the afternoon, he works for celebrity chef Jean Robert at "The Table," one of his upscale restaurants. Chris and friend Kyle were sort of responsible for the cooking club. They told the principal there was nothing for them at Oyler. They started missing school and they wanted a cooking club. Principal Randolph and La Soupe made it happen.

A high poverty area where a cooking club could be just about hunger but it's so much more than that.

"La Soupe" is a non-profit group which rescues produce which would have been thrown away.

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