Medicine Hat chef honoured with public school division award for community impact

Over the past two years, Koch has partnered with several schools, including George Davison School, Dr. Roy Wilson Learning Centre and Dr. Ken Sauer School, bringing cooking, creativity and life skills into the classroom.

One of the initiatives, called the Community of Hope Project, focused on helping students experiencing food insecurity.

Working out of the Root Cellar’s kitchen, Koch led cooking sessions that taught participants basic culinary skills, budgeting and how to prepare meals using limited ingredients.

Many of the students were newcomers to Canada, and several were siblings from the same neighbourhood.

“It was really good to make a little bit of an impact on folks that in a lot of cases, were both new Canadians and also experiencing some food insecurity,” Koch said.

The project also encouraged students to photograph their community, with their work displayed at the library before culminating in a community long-table dinner planned for September to bring families and neighbours together and conclude the year-long initiative.

At Dr. Ken Sauer School, Koch has helped Grade 5 and 6 students explore how creative writing and marketing connect to the hospitality industry.

Students develop restaurant menu ideas before competing in a friendly culinary challenge, with the winning dish featured as a teacher special at Hometown Culinary.

For Koch, the real reward has always been seeing students connect classroom learning to the real world.

“It feels amazing that these things are resonating, and that they seem to be having an impact and people are noticing,” Koch said.

“This is a model that you could very easily replicate elsewhere. None of it is terribly complicated,” he added.

“It just takes a little bit of initiative and some community partners that are on board to put a little bit of extra work in it.”

Koch said growing food insecurity in the community makes these partnerships increasingly important, pointing to the rising demand seen by the Root Cellar Food and Wellness Hub in recent years.

While the award bears his name, Koch says it represents something much bigger.

“I’m just really appreciative that there’s that many people in the community that have these ideas and bring them forward,” Koch said.

“They’re doing it specifically because they care about the community so much, they just take seriously investing in our next generation of kids.”

by Jett Schwaier

Medicine Hat chef honoured with public school division award for community impact

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