Cooking Matters was identified by the Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Team as an action that - when combined with other actions in our community - has a reasonable chance of making a difference in healthy eating in our community. This is an on-going program.

The priority population/customers for Cooking Matters are low income adults and families, and the healthy eating program aims to make a difference at the individual/interpersonal/organizational/community change level. Implementation will take place in the community setting and virtually.

Cooking matters has been very successful in our community.  Our goal is to continue the program either in person or virtually.  We would love if funding and support is available to expand to offering more than twice per year.

The partners for Cooking Matters include:

In 2022 the Cooking Matters program was put on hold by the lead agency and during the summer restructuring of the program began.

As of August, the new plan was to collaborate with care managers to make referrals through NC Care 360 as part of the Healthy Opportunities Pilot.  Qualifying individuals would be admitted to the program for free and would have the necessary ingredients provided for the lessons. However, community members that were interested would be charged a small fee for participation and would be sent an ingredient list they would be responsible for bringing to the class for their own personal use. Due to increased need for food boxes through the Healthy Opportunities Pilot the YMCA did not have the capacity to restart the program as planned.

The HEAL team is collaborating with NC Cooperative Extension Family and Consumer Science Agent in an attempt to partner with the YMCA, local libraries and food pantries in hopes of restarting Cooking Matters or implementing a similar program.

During the pause of the Cooking Matters program the local Family and Consumer Science Agent (FCS) began Dining with Diabetes program. The program was conducted at two area active living centers and a gift card incentive was offered upon completion. In Hot Springs, 16 individuals completed the program and in Laurel there were 13. A future Dining with Diabetes class is scheduled for Mars HIll in March of 2023.  In addition, the FCS agent also created recipe cards and conducted cooking demonstrations and taste testings at the YMCA Mobile Market (a mobile fresh fruit/vegetable delivery program).

In Summer of 2023 a virtual Cooking Matters program was held and promoted.  No Madison County residents participated.  Some barriers that were identified that may have attributed to this lack of participation were the time of year the class was held, internet availability, and ingredients were not supplied as they were in the past.  The HEAL team is working with the YMCA to offer this program again in Spring 2024.

Also in 2023 our local Cooperative Extension conducted an in-person Cooking Matters/Let's Get Cooking program with 9 participants. This program featured participants cooking and eating together and in partnership with MANNA provided ingredients to make the meal again at home.

In addition, during 2023 the following programs were offered in collaboration with community partners:

• Three Diabetes 101 classes with 36 participants, and one Spanish class with 12 participants
• Cook Together, Eat Together class with 12 parents and children and Snacks with Friends with 12 parents and children
• One Pan Meals class with 12 participants
• Two Med Instead of Meds classes with 22 participants
• International Cooking class with 12 participants
• Smarter Shopping class with 5 participants
• Batch Making Pesto class with 3 participants
• My Plate Breakfast program at Hot Springs Elementary School with 148 students
• All About Strawberries program with 25 preschool children and their parents