The Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) Beach Kitchen held its grand opening ceremony at the University Dining Plaza on Wednesday, April 20 to demonstrate nutritional cooking programs available to the Beach community.
The new program will be holding free culinary demonstrations by Beach Pantry student workers and will also involve other campus organizations such as Basic Needs, CalFresh, and the Department of Family And Consumer Sciences.
Taylor Buhler-Scott, ASI associate director of programs and communications said the kitchen will be using ingredients from the Beach Pantry to teach students how to cook meals with them.
“It’s kind of a way to further their wellness of providing easy access to food then teaching them how to make nutritious and healthy meals,” she said.
Buhler-Scott also said the Beach Kitchen website will be updated with a “rolling calendar of events” that will primarily be held during the weekdays where students can sign up.
“It’s a brand new opportunity so they’re going to figure out what dates, time and length work best for the student population,” she said.
Iraida Venegas, ASI associate director of commercial business operations said with the available space 12 to 15 people can participate at the program’s long tables where hands-on cooking lessons will be offered.
“No student fee money was used in the making of this kitchen,” Venegas said.
Christina Limon, Beach Pantry coordinator wrote in an email that Beach Kitchen was funded by the Basic Needs Partnership Request for Proposals from the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s office.
Limon said they proposed the grant on October 2019, requesting funds to build Beach Kitchen and it was approved on December of that year.
With the funding provided by the CSU Chancellor’s office, ASI chose to build the Beach Kitchen at the University Dining Plaza (UDP) because it closed during the pandemic, and previously contained several restaurants.
Venegas said students are used to having their parents cook for them and don’t have the “basic skills” required to make quick and healthy meals for themselves.
“When students graduate from high school they need to figure out all this stuff that their parents used to do for them,” Venegas said. “It’s the basic life skills, we want students to be able to leave college and be able to succeed.”