KidsCookDinner.com was started when we (Max and Alex…i.e. the “kids”) started cooking dinner every Sunday night for the family and realized how fun it was. We decided we wanted to let other kids and their parents know that kids CAN cook and that we needed to encourage kids to cook more. Coming up with a menu, shopping for food and then cooking it also made us understand and appreciate the importance of food and sharing it with your friends and family. It also brings our whole family together on Sunday night–getting us ready for the week ahead.
When we started the website, we entered the domain name in a domain name contest sponsored by Verisign. Then we forgot we had entered…so we were really surprised when we got an email that we had won $5000 and had advanced to the second round of the contest. We had to make a video about why our website name was a good name, and then judges and the public voted on the best names. We were even more surprised when we actually won the grand prize of $30,000! (Thanks to everyone who voted for us.) Click HERE to hear the story of the domain name.
Because we have plenty to eat however, and millions of other people in the world don’t have enough food, we decided to donate 1/2 of the prize (or $17,500)* to Action Against Hunger, an international hunger relief charity dedicated to saving the lives of malnourished children, while helping vulnerable communities become self sufficient. Worldwide, 1.2 billion people have less than $1.50 a day to spend on food! Can you imagine that?? We calculated that the cost of our typical breakfasts (bowl of cereal with milk, juice and a piece of fruit) cost about $1.50! And we could not imagine that being the only food we got all day. We even tried to survive on only $1.50 of food for a day (see below) and we were all so hungry (and grumpy). *Note originally we donated 1/3 of the prize, put 1/3 in our college fund and reserved 1/3 to help fund the website. But we realized we don’t need that much money to run the website so we donated another $5834 in July 2016 to bring our donation to $17,500.
We were lucky enough to get visit the Action Against Hunger office in New York. Thank you Asif, Alex, Andrea, Elizabeth and the whole team at Action Against Hunger in New York for meeting with us, giving us a tour and explaining some of the amazing work you do when we dropped off the check. Wow! You are all truly inspiring! We continue to stay in touch with Action Against Hunger, including participating in their Students X Hunger year-end donation drive.
Max and Alex with Alex Cottin, Director of External Affairs and Andrea Tamburini, CEO, of AAH-USA
Mom says that the more we can encourage kids to make healthy choices, from what they eat to what they do, the better off they will be in the long run. And, the more kids can participate and own their activities (like what they cook and eat), the more they seem to enjoy those activities. So let’s all cook more! Let’s all try to take the time to enjoy what we cook together! And, at least for our family, let’s all be thankful for the fact that we can afford to eat plenty of healthy food.
Help us X out hunger!
