Young Chefs at Carleton: Building community through the science of cooking

Run by Carleton’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE), the Young Chefs program at Northfield Middle School aims to empower middle school students while offering Carleton volunteers a chance to connect with the broader Northfield community. The heart of the Young Chefs program lies in its mission to teach kids low-cost, easy-to-make recipes that they can prepare for their families at home. For an hour and a half each week, middle school students delve into the recipes, with Carleton student volunteers making sure all their questions are answered each step of the way.

Semma Twinning ’25, program lead for Young Chefs, explained how the program began as a creative way to offer after-school care, and has become so much more than just a place to go when classes are done. 

“It has grown as a program to be a lot more than just about the cooking,” Twinning said. “We incorporate science activities related to what we are cooking and focus on community building.”

By providing this afterschool program, the CCCE helps facilitate the creation of a special community not based around classes or cliques. It is a truly “unique community,” observed Twinning, “where [the students] can start to trust each other and build long-standing relationships in the classroom across grades.”

With logistics managed by Twinning — including grocery shopping, recipe planning, and ensuring the kitchen is clean and ready — the program runs smoothly each week during the academic year. 

The Young Chefs kitchen setup involves dividing the middle school students into groups of two to four, allowing for personalized attention and hands-on learning. It’s a “great space,” Twinning says, with seven mini kitchens in one open-concept classroom. Each of the kitchens has an oven, microwave, stovetop, sink, and cabinets, with each space set up so the kids can be as involved as possible. The middle schoolers are given most of the control and authority in the kitchen in order to help them build confidence, Twinning says. 

“They are doing all the cooking and cleaning as they become more comfortable and learn what they are capable of,” she said. “It’s fun to watch them and see the ones who come back grow and get more engaged week to week.” 

What sets Young Chefs apart from other volunteer opportunities is its interactive nature. Carleton volunteers take on leadership roles, guiding their own group of kids through the cooking process, which fosters responsibility and quick thinking. The program’s low time commitment also makes it accessible to busy college students while providing a valuable opportunity to engage with the Northfield community.

For Twinning, the motivation to dedicate her time to Young Chefs stems from a combination of her passions for working with kids, teaching, and cooking.

“I was initially drawn to Young Chefs because it combines a lot of my different interests,” she said. “Each group is always fun to work with. I continue to want to be involved with Young Chefs because it’s such a dynamic program — always exciting, no two weeks are the same. Even as I’ve gotten into a rhythm in terms of organization and lesson plans, the kids bring so much energy and I learn something new each week.”

Danielle Trajano, manager of student development programs for the CCCE, highlighted how Young Chefs allows Carleton students to step outside the Carleton bubble and connect with the wider Rice County community.

“[Volunteering] is mutually beneficial because [Carleton students] are supporting after-school programs, but they are also getting to connect with people of all ages, getting to learn alongside students, and feel a genuine sense of community that they may not feel on campus,” Trajano said. “It’s also a way to apply classroom learning to the real world and see how things might not be exactly how they seem in translation between academic learning and real-world application.”