Sarah Wharton has had a big heart from the start. Her decision to study Environment Science was born out of concern for the earth and our overwhelming, collective impact on it. Over time, her interests narrowed to a specific focus: teaching kids how to make healthy food and keeping it fun along the way. With a master’s degree from Cornell, Sarah worked for a successful nonprofit, Coalition for Healthy School Food, managing an after-school program reaching seven schools in Ithaca, New York.
“I immediately loved it. I was so nervous but immediately I was like this might be what I want to do,” she says. “We were cooking food that was better for their bodies and more sustainable. I was hooked, and I worked for them until we moved here.”
In 2016, Sarah’s husband, Thomas Denes, a microbiologist who studies food safety, took a position at the University of Tennessee, prompting their move to Knoxville. They rooted in East Tennessee immediately, and by 2017, Sarah started a healthy cooking after-school program at Pond Gap Elementary School. She was back in her element teaching three cooking classes a week and learning that kids were kids, whether from Tennessee or New York--skeptical of a new vegetable but willing to try it. Soon, the kids learned to trust her and anticipated each recipe with a new level of curiosity.
By 2020, the program shifted to online on account of the COVID-19 Pandemic, which had a positive effect Sarah didn’t anticipate.
“Because we couldn’t be with the kids in person, we did this virtual model and partnered with Nourish Knoxville. We’d send home all the ingredients for them to make a recipe, and I’d meet them on a virtual platform, and we cooked alongside each other,” she says. “But this got the parents involved. You don’t have to convince kids to join a cooking program, but adding the parents added another layer.”
Whether the parents are directly involved or supporting from the sidelines, Sarah believes that exposure to new foods is the gateway for young people to build a healthy, sustainable relationship with food, and while her program is entirely plant-based, the absence of meat or animal byproducts is rarely a topic of conversation.
“We say ‘plant-focused’ so we don’t turn anyone off, but we teach plant-based recipes because they pack a nutritional bang for your buck and include a lot of nutrients that families aren’t getting enough of—vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. We don’t even say anything about plant-based food. We just say we’re cooking a lot of vegetables and that they have superpowers,” says Sarah. “There’s no stigma or shame. We never say what they shouldn’t eat, and no one on our team is fully plant-based. We almost always have a dairy allergy in class, and there’s usually someone who’s a vegetarian or gluten-free. It’s inclusive of everyone’s diet. It’s the most environmentally sustainable, checks nutritional boxes, and eliminates some, but not all, of the major safety concerns.”
Once Tom was settled in his role at UT, and they started building their own family with the birth of two children, Sarah wondered if the success she’d had at Pond Gap Elementary could be multiplied. The couples’ passion for underserved communities was strong, and they knew Sarah’s work could have a big impact with the right team and sufficient financial support. In November 2022, Sarah launched Little Chefs, Big Change as an after-school healthy cooking program, currently partnered with Dogwood Elementary, Wesley House Community Center, Pond Gap Elementary, and the Shora Foundation.
Little Chefs, Big Change offers six to eight classes for one group. In each class, the kids are assigned a station where they work on a portion of the meal, culminating in a full dinner. The process prompts them to follow recipes, learn knife skills, and build confidence along the way.
“Our main goal is to help kids form identities around not being afraid to try new things, or even try a new cultural dish, like a kidney bean chili with Indian spices. When they try it, they’re so surprised, and then they’ll say, ‘I like Indian food,’” says Sarah. “There’s always fresh fruit available, or they’ll make a smoothie, so they’re getting cooking skills, confidence in the kitchen, and they’re getting a healthy meal.”
While the goal is to get kids exposed and acclimated to a collection of diverse recipes, thereby expanding their knowledge and experiences with a variety of foods, sometimes a one-time exposure packs the biggest punch.
“The first time we taught at Dogwood we had a student nervously tell one of our staff, ‘I’m not sure if I’ve had vegetables before. I’m not sure about this sweet potato burger.’ We reassured him that he didn’t have to eat it but to just go through the process. Then we all took a bite at the same time, and he ate three of them!” says Sarah. “He was so excited to bring the recipe home and teach his parents how to make it. He took the class again, which we love, and he asked for the recipe again.”
One of the most critical parts of Little Chefs, Big Change is having targeted goals based on research. Sarah works with the Community-University Research Collaboration Initiative (CURCI), a segment of the Sociology Department at the University of Tennessee, to track and ensure that the program is having an impact. In fact, Lori Labotka, the director of research at Little Chefs, Big Change, and Rebekah Wolfram Mustaleski, research coordinator, developed and coordinated a before/after survey that measures skills, likeability of food, and other metrics. They’ve polled parents and students alike to make sure their program is doing what it set out to do and having the intended impact. So far, so good.
“We learned, not just anecdotally, from the surveys that the kids like the food and want to participate again. But then, we asked about certain vegetables, and some kids still said they didn’t like them. That taught us that there’s a difference between cooked and raw food,” says Sarah. “I mean, I’ve had kids eat multiple bowls of Pasta Fagioli and still they say they don’t like carrots. We learned that we must connect the dots for these kids, and we wouldn’t have known that without the research.”
Like any nonprofit, nothing moves without financial support. Sarah would like to grow the virtual arm of the organization and ultimately reach more kids in underserved communities. Programming is in place, and both UT and United Way have been crucial in supplying volunteers in various ways. However, there is always a need for more volunteers with cooking experience, as well as a boosted budget to hire more staff. In fact, there’s a waiting list of kids and recipes ready to go.
“The biggest need is funding to buy the ingredients and pay the instructors, but I would never turn away a volunteer,” says Sarah.
While the focus of Little Chefs, Big Change is to teach kids about healthy foods and how to cook them, the results continue after the meal has been eaten. Participants gain independence and confidence, their math and literacy skills improve through reading recipes, and they learn how to problem solve and think critically.
“We are empowering kids as agents of change—in their families and the community,” says Sarah. “We all know we want to eat healthy food, but if you don’t like it, you won’t eat it. That’s where we come in.”
“There’s no stigma or shame. We never say what they shouldn’t eat, and no one on our team is fully plant-based.
Sarah Wharton
Founder and Executive Director of Little Chef's Big Change. Sarah has always loved cooking, teaching, and helping the planet, and she combined all three when she founded Little Chefs, Big Change. With a masters from Cornell and years of experience managing after-school cooking programs, Sarah knows how to make healthy eating fun and accessible for kids.
Learn more at www.LittleChefsBigChange.org