Montreal·Video

NDG Food Depot's Boîte à Lunch program unites kids through cooking

What does it take to unite a community? Food, a good sense of humour, and some very enthusiastic volunteers from the NDG Food Depot.

Free cooking workshop teaches children how to prepare healthy lunches

Visit the Boîte à Lunch children's cooking class

9 years ago
Duration 1:47
CBC Montreal spent an afternoon at the NDG Food Depot's Boîte à Lunch program, where kids from all backgrounds bond over healthy food.

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  • Thanks to your support, CBC Montreal raised over $44K for the NDG Food Depot

Every week, Boîte à lunch co-ordinator Beccah Frasier carries a trailer of fresh ingredients by bicycle from the NDG Food Depot to the Walkley Centre.

Facilitator Beatriz Enciso shows Ashley Moungounga how to roll sushi at the Boîte à lunch workshop. (CBC)

That's where she and several other facilitators meet a crowd of enthusiastic children once a week, for their regular cooking class.

Boîte à Lunch is one of several community programs offered by the NDG Food Depot.

The workshop offers free cooking and nutrition workshops to children after school. Participants get to learn to prepare a healthy lunch, which they can bring to school the following day.

While the workshops are set up in underprivileged neighbourhoods, anyone can sign up no matter their financial situation. 

Cooking together and eating together is a really good way of...bonding.- Beccah Frasier, Boîte à Lunch co-ordinator

The program's philosophy is that through food and fun, children can gain new skills and bridge gaps in their community.

"That's really what we're going for," says Beccah Frasier, Boîte à Lunch co-ordinator.

"One of our values is being open and we are lucky to be in a really multicultural neighbourhood ... Cooking together and eating together is a really good way of finding similarities and differences between our cultures and connecting and bonding over them."

Help support programs like Boîte à Lunch

All of this year's proceeds for the CBC Christmas Sing-In go to help the NDG Food Depot, a community-based, non-profit organization that works with other community partners to address issues of food security in NDG and surrounding areas. Programs include: food and cooking skills, emergency food baskets, community gardens, and volunteer-run meals.