(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - When I learn something, I like to spread the knowledge with everybody else and that's pretty much what I did.

It's how we started our youth program actually.

(trumpet plays) No, I'm just playing.

(laughs) - Let me get a little bit of that.

- [Taronda] Some of the issues I know that young people face when regarding food and nutrition for one is access.

You know, there aren't enough accessible places to get healthy produce and things to eat.

- I see a lot of health disparities.

So a lot of diabetes, a lot of obesity in young kids too like seven and younger.

[Faro] So I know that food access and the quality of the food is tied to that.

Educating about quality food, educating about how to cook food, and how good it is for you, and having it there in the community is really important.

- One thing that they talk about is not having like the knowledge around food and then knowing how to prepare the meal that they are trying to make.

[Lataijah] That's why we started our Youth Community Cooks.

Give the youth their own space and to learn how to actually make these things without adults being around them.

- [Taronda] I think also about the role of parents as it relates to nutrition.

In today's, you know, world a lot of parents are moving really fast between, you know, the morning drop off before their job and picking the youth up after school.

They're often just trying to get their youth fed and often maybe not able to spend the amount of time they would like to preparing healthy meals.

So alternatively, they may pick, you know, something quick and simple.

We can't feed kids chicken nuggets every other night.

[Taronda] We have to really think more intentionally about the nutrition that they need to get.

When we feel better, we perform better.

- It does bro!

- [Lataijah] Cooking, it skipped a generation.

And so one thing that we work on is getting everybody back in the kitchen together and really like taking the time out.

We have smartphones, you can easily pull your phone out look up a recipe, go buy the ingredients or just look what you got in your house.

What can I make with this?

[Lataijah] I see it all the time when we have youth come in here.

They be like, "No, Ma, we can't eat that, that's not good for you, that got this, this and that in it," and I be like, "Oh y'all actually are listening.

Like when y'all are in the classroom, it don't seem like you're actually taking this information away.

But when I see y'all out in the community and with your families it's like, wow, they really are listening."

So that's just like one of the biggest things for me is really seeing the youth take this knowledge that we are giving them and taking it back to their families.

So it's just really amazing to see like the information that we are giving even to seven-year-olds, four-year-olds, and how they take it and showing the elders and their families what to do with it.

It's just really great to see.

- [Taronda] We literally want to put the information in the homes of our families and give them the information they need to make more informed choices, but ultimately, no one's perfect.

And it's just about making the best decision in that moment.