Give today to become an 18 Reasons Holiday Helper

Regina's Story

“When COVID hit and my kids’ schools closed, I didn’t know how I would feed my family or keep them safe.”

- Regina, a Cooking Matters at Home participant

Regina and her family joined one of our online Cooking Matters at Home series this fall. With two kids learning at home and a full-time job, cooking healthy food for her family seemed like an impossible challenge. Regina's doctor had diagnosed her son as pre-diabetic, and she knew she had to do her best to build healthy habits at home to set a better example for her kids. Through our Cooking Matters series, Regina discovered the joy and satisfaction of cooking and sharing healthy food with her family:

“In Cooking Matters, we talk about using vegetables to bring different flavors and colors to our plates. Eating healthy doesn't have to be confusing. We make simple recipes that focus on eating fresh and eating the rainbow. After making collard green wraps with sweet bell peppers, creamy avocado, and some bite from red onions, I saw that eating vegetables can be something I want to do and that my kids like, too. Cooking Matters helped me bring my kids into the kitchen with me, and they’re so proud to eat the food they help me cook.” - Regina

Above: a picture of the collard wraps Regina made in her class

Help us share our Cooking Matters program with more families like Regina's

“I am so thankful that 18 Reasons helped my family, but not everyone in my community has been taken care of like that. I hope you will help other families get the food and cooking skills they need to raise healthy kids.” - Regina

1 in 4 children and 1 in 6 adults in the Bay Area are at risk of food insecurity because of COVID-19. Roughly 75% of Cooking Matters participants like Regina have lost income and/or employment because of the pandemic.

18 Reasons is a nonprofit cooking school on a mission to empower our community with the confidence and creativity needed to buy, cook, and eat good food every day. We offer two food education programs. At our 18th Street Kitchen in San Francisco, we host paid cooking classes with chefs from around the world, and ticket sales help support our free programming for low-income families. Through our Cooking Matters program, we offer grocery donations paired with free cooking and nutrition classes to low-income families throughout the Bay Area. Our vision is to create equity and belonging through the transformative and healing power of home cooking.

In the spring of 2020, we quickly ramped up our food distribution capacity in order to get healthy groceries into the hands of low-income families affected by coronavirus restrictions. Almost overnight, we increased our food distribution by over 300%. We are now providing more than 16,500 pounds of healthy food to food-insecure households each month. But the calls keep coming, and we need your help to meet the demand.

Donate today to allow us to deliver grocery donations and offer free online food education to low-income families participating in Cooking Matters at Home. Your gift will have an immediate impact on a neighbor facing food insecurity as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

By helping us meet our $30,000 fundraising goal, you will provide Cooking Matters at Home classes and weekly grocery donations to 1,200 food-insecure families.

Want to make an even bigger impact?

Make it a monthly gift! Please consider making a secure, automatic recurring contribution by choosing the monthly frequency option when you make your gift. Monthly donations help stretch the benefit of your gift: for you, for us, and for the families in our Cooking Matters program.

Thank you for being a Holiday Helper

Thank you for being part of our 18 Reasons family. We can't wait to share our table with you again. Until then, thank you for sharing what you can, so that everyone in our community has access to the healthy food they need to stay healthy.