A new cookbook is helping tackle food insecurity with flavor and pride. It’s sharing stories, cultural heritage, and a mission to nourish kids in the community. The “Spark & Spoon Family Cookbook” features families from the Boston Boys & Girls Club in Aurora who contributed family recipes.
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The cookbook is the latest milestone in the Spark & Spoon Project, a multi-year initiative led by Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver in partnership with Simply Good Foods and retail giant King Soopers.
The goal is to combat food insecurity, childhood obesity, and gaps in nutrition education through culturally meaningful and accessible food programming.
“So many exciting things brought this cookbook together,” said Rachel Rooney, Senior Director of Philanthropy at Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver. “Many of our kids, specifically at our Boston Boys and Girls Club, really loved to cook. They had been dreaming up ways they could maybe make a cookbook one day. And then our partners at Simply Good Foods zoomed in and said, ‘We’ll make it happen.'”
Simply Good Foods helped gather recipes from club families, tested them in their corporate kitchen, and collaborated on the design.
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What makes the cookbook stand out is the global variety of dishes.
“They were all recipes that were submitted by our families, and so they come from all different areas that these families are from,” said Rooney. “Many different countries are represented – from Mexico to Brazil to Venezuela – all over the world.”
Revenue from the cookbook will directly support those healthy lifestyle efforts. Priced at $20, every dollar from sales goes back into nutrition and wellness programming for the clubs.
“Our partners at Simply Good and our partners at King Soopers are both huge proponents of our Healthy Lifestyles Program,” said Rooney. “We teach our kids about how to eat well, but we also feed our kids and make sure they have all the food that they need. We provide them with healthy meals as well as healthy snacks to ensure that no one goes without food who’s in need.”
You can purchase the cookbook at 15 participating King Soopers locations throughout Metro Denver. A full list of store locations is available on the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver website at bgcmd.org.