Vetri Community Partnership: Cooking Lab Volunteer

Established to help kids experience the connection between healthy eating and healthy living, Vetri Community Partnership empowers children and families to lead healthier lives through fresh food, hands-on experiences and education.

Vetri Cooking Lab is an out-of-school time program hosted at 30 sites throughout Philadelphia, PA and Camden, NJ. We're looking for enthusiastic volunteers with a passion for nutrition education to assist our Educators as they guide students through recipes, teach important nutrition lessons, and highlight science, technology, engineering, arts and math. VCL Volunteers do not need to be chefs or nutritionists! We are teaching basic, home cooking techniques to allow our students to become educated food consumers.

Volunteers are responsible for:

• Assisting with classroom management
  • Providing direction to students on assigned tasks
  • Answering questions
  • Cooking alongside student participants
• Engaging with students in an enthusiastic and positive manner
• Encouraging food exploration
• Taking direction from their VCL Educator on where an extra pair of hands is needed!
• Committing to be at each lab session and, if any conflicts arise, agree to communicate with your point-of-contact in advance

Schedule

Specific schedules (days and times) vary site to site, but all of our labs:

• Run once a week between Monday - Friday, between the hours of 3 - 6 pm for a 10-week semester.
• Are built for 12-15 students, 2nd grade and up.
• Take place in a 2-hour block of time, but volunteers may contribute 3-4 hours when assisting with set up, assistance, and clean up.
• Semesters run for 10 weeks, with our fall semester beginning in October and our spring semester beginning in February.

Volunteers must be able to commit to a 10-week program, meeting on the same day each week. We prefer to have the same volunteer at one site for all 10 Labs throughout the semester. Volunteers will be placed at sites as we hear back from our partners with confirmed schedules at the beginning of each semester. Our team works hard to conveniently place volunteers at sites that are accommodating to their geographical location – perfect placement is not always guaranteed!