Burbank’s Community Day School wins $10K IKEA grant to revamp kitchen

The kitchen at Community Day School in Burbank, where students learn to cook with vegetables they grow in the school’s garden, will undergo a major renovation thanks to a $10,000 grant from IKEA.

The campus of about 30 students serves at-risk youth who have fallen behind in classwork due to personal or emotional challenges. In recent years, the garden at the school is where the students have learned to grow vegetables and fruit and, in their current kitchen, they’ve made tacos, egg rolls, pizzas, beef broccoli, salads, and homemade ice cream.

But with the IKEA grant, they’re about to get a new refrigerator, oven and microwave, along with basic kitchen tools such as new pots and pans.

Community Day School Principal Christine Krohn said the improvements to the school’s kitchen will be invaluable.

“You have to see the kids’ faces light up when you see them cook,” she said.

One of Krohn’s students, before starting to work in the school’s garden last year, didn’t eat fruit or vegetables. Now, she said, that’s all he prefers to eat, and his mother said her son “cooks dinner every night for the family.”

“A lot of our kids are not college-orientated,” she said. “It opens up a whole new avenue for them. They could be in restaurant management. They could be the head chef…There are so many opportunities.”

A recent $250 donation from the Burbank Valley Garden Club allowed many students to receive their food-handling licenses, which helped when students applied for food-service jobs while in school, Krohn said.

Aramark also donated aprons and hats for the students. Now, all that’s left to conquer is the kitchen.

“I think this kitchen and the garden program gives them that chance to show who they really are,” Krohn said.