We have been involved with the folks at SOAR for almost 5 years now, hosting the families as they drop off or pick up their kids. Recently, as they move to expand their curriculum and include additional life skills, we have arranged to have four groups of students visit us at Oak Hill to develop their cooking skills. These students are assigned cooking days where they are required to prepare the day’s meals for their group. Our goal was to demonstrate some basic techniques such as measuring, knife skills, the benefits of mise en place, tempering eggs, etc. Each student helped with an aspect of the preparation, some separating eggs, others beating whipped cream, and so on. We all know that teenage boys are always hungry, so they thought it was so cool that they were able to taste the results. We even compared freshly whipped cream to the stuff in the can and talked about how easy it was to make your own and how much better it tastes!

Over the past 5 years, we have watched these kids grow and blossom into gracious self-confident individuals. It is an honor and our pleasure to be associated with this wonderful organization and the fantastic families we have come to know.