The Project's Beginnings

One day you wake up and realize that your body is older than your mind. When that happens, one of two things occur. You begin to work on your body and try to stave off the ravages of time or you go inward to find yourself and what you have become. That reckoning came for me one day last summer. It started innocently enough at a fund raising event. I was seated among a group of extraordinary strangers and started bragging about my culinary abilities. It was then that they challenged me to use these abilites to help others. Naturally I agreed never thinking that I would ever hear from them again. How wrong and lucky for me that out of this, something wonderful was about to happen in my life. I was asked to teach a group of 80 children in a summer reading program. After agreeing, I began to ask myself if I could really do this, was I as good a teacher as a braggard. After a rough start and a few setbacks, I realized that I could indeed do this and could do it on a regular basis. I knew lots of people in the nonprofit sector who suggested that I turn this whim into a fully pledged life contribution. Me, teaching kids how to cook, who would have thought? After the first class, the spell had been casted and I could think of nothing better to do with my time. It consumed my days and nights. How to move forward? Continued