December 30th, 2019: On July 3rd, 2018, Harry Styles performed in Denver, Colorado. Here, using the proceeds from the sale of his Treat People with Kindness merchandise and part of the tickets’ sale, he made a donation to Cooking Matters Colorado.

Cooking Matters Colorado is one of the two branches of Cooking Matters, the other one being Cooking Matters Massachusetts, and it is a charity that works to help parents and caregivers, that live on a limited budget, provide nutritious meals to their families.

The charity partners with culinary instructors to offer six-week cooking courses, grocery store tours, and childcare professionals training to families across Colorado. The charity’s goal is to provide information on how to shop smarter buying nutritious and healthy food that is also budget-friendly and how to use this food to prepare delicious meals. Cooking Matters indeed believes that by providing healthy meals to young children, they can ensure that they grow, learn, and thrive.

Cooking Matters normally organizes the cooking courses at locations, such as Farmers Markets, that are convenient for the families they serve. These families are often low-income and enrolled in federal assistance programs.

The video below is shared from the Cooking Matters youtube channel.

Cooking Matters Colorado also works to influence policies on a community-wide level to encourage healthy eating. For example, this charity partners with food retailers to make healthy food more easily accessible so that shopping and cooking healthy becomes more attainable by low-income families. Some of the strategies Cooking Matters use are Double Up Food Buck, a card that allows doubling of the food quantity purchased for the same amount of money for food items such as fruits and vegetables, and Local Health Champion.

Specific policies that protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or “food stamps”), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC), free school breakfasts, afterschool meals, and summer meals, are also strongly supported by Cooking Matters.

On their website Cooking Matters Colorado has a page containing a collection of stories of people that were helped by this charity or that volunteer for it. The testimonies found on this page really illustrate how much good this charity has done in its community. For example, Janette, a young woman who had to flee an abusive marriage and who, after benefiting from the charity, has started volunteering for it, says “It’s something anyone can benefit from, regardless of income. I see it as a fire starting, you know, I feel like there’s so much potential for this program to grow…it seems like it benefits people so much that you can literally see them growing in the class.”  On the same page Alyssa, a volunteer for Cooking Matters Colorado says: “My favorite thing about Cooking Matters is the excitement and awareness that comes across participants’ faces when something clicks for them and they are empowered and realize they can do something to help their children and families’ health. It’s encouraging for me.”

On their website, Cooking Matters also has a list of delicious budget-friendly yet healthy recipes. The list is searchable based on ingredients and prep time and can be accessed here.

Cooking Matters is supported by volunteers that work in many different capacities including Culinary Instructors, Nutrition Instructors, and Class Assistants. If you are interested in learning more about how to become a volunteer for this charity, head over to this link. You can support Cooking Matters also by pledging a donation, organizing a food drive or becoming an advocate. Find information about how you can help here.

Harry Styles’ picture is shared from his Twitter account (Helene Pambrun’s photography).