High school students bring Feast of Flavors to the Boys & Girls Club
Crean Lutheran High School students Jasmine Lee and Lara Cinar come from different cultural backgrounds: Lee is of Chinese heritage and Cinar of Armenian descent. The two friends, however, realized that through their cultures’ food they could learn a lot about each other.
“Food is a universal connector.” Lee said.
Cinar agreed, “I definitely learned about the Chinese culture more because of Jasmine.”
The pair are members of the 2024 Fellowship Class of the Orange County-based nonprofit the Dragon Kim Foundation and partnered for a project they called Feast of Flavors, a free cooking camp designed to teach youth the importance of diversity and embracing one another’s differences.
“We see a lot of diversity today in the world, and there is also a lot of of hate. We want kids to know from a young age that despite our differences we can all step back and see that in some ways, we are the same,” said Cinar. “We also want them to be passionate about their own culture and learning about other kids’ culture too.”
The teens highlighted different cultures over the two-week cooking camp by teaching kids recipes from their respective backgrounds and also talking about their history and connection to their cultures. Through Feast of Flavors, Lee and Cinar have also created a cookbook with the recipes they learned.
“Food has lot of history behind it, which is why we brought in elders from the different cultures,” said Lee. “So, kids are not only learning how to make a new food, but also learning about the importance of it.”
Cinar brought in her grandmother, Lusvart Cepkinian, to teach kids how to make an Armenian dish called sarma.
“Sarma is ground beef wrapped in grape leaves, and it’s a really traditional dish,” said Cinar. “Especially in the summertime, grape leaves are a really popular plant people grow in their backyards in Armenia. People usually use fresh grape leaves, but we also use cabbage leaves.”
Cepkinian said she learned to make sarma as a child in Armenia with her mother and sister, and she was happy to teach the kids about it.
“We filled the grape leaves, and all the kids were watching and chopping the parsley,” said Cepkinian. “They were very interested.”
Dragon Kim Foundation, a social entrepreneurship incubator for high school youth, helps to fund teen-led community service projects.
“So far we have funded 300 projects over the last seven years; this is the eighth cohort this year,” said Daniel Kim, who founded the foundation with his wife, Grace.
Kim said his foundation challenges students to think about what they would do to help the community if they had the resources. Students are given leadership and business training and a mentor to work with through the seven-month program. They also receive funding for their projects.
“Funding is an important piece, but we believe it is not the most important piece,” said Kim. “We give them the tools for them to take their vision and really make it come to life.”
The culminating event for Feast of Flavors took place on a recent Friday afternoon at the Boys & Girls Club of Costa Mesa, where a delectable spread of multicultural food was laid out in the club kitchen.
“Costa Mesa, specifically, is a very culturally diverse city, and it is important for our kids to learn more about different cultures and meet people from different cultures and have that experience in a safe and fun environment,” said David Blair, director of philanthropy at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Orange Coast. “This partnership with the Dragon Kim Foundation has been an incredible way to bridge that, using food as a medium.”
In addition to food from Lee and Cinar’s background, club members were invited to bring a dish from their own culture to share.
“We have a few goodies from a bunch of different cultures, like Armenian, Indian and Mexican,” said Cinar.
A few club members stood around the table admiring the food and remarked that they had never seen some of the dishes before, although they agreed they looked appetizing. A tray of pancit, a Filipino noodle dish and pulao, a rice pilaf dish popular in India, were among the plates at the feast.
Cepkinian was at the Boys & Girls Club event too, helping Cinar and Lee teach kids about the Armenian alphabet and helping her granddaughter set up the food.
“I am so proud,” said Cepkinian. “They are keeping their culture and their traditions for the next generation.”
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