Lake Stevens woman’s cooking classes help kids eat healthfully

EVERETT — Pat Benefiel learned to cook in seventh-grade home economics.

She soon became the primary cook in her family.

This past spring, the 67-year-old taught cooking and nutrition classes every school night at the Casino Road Community Center, a satellite program overseen by the Mukilteo YMCA.

She and her husband, Jim, have offered similar programs in the past at schools in the Casino Road area, and the Boys & Girls Club in Lake Stevens, where they live.

At first, the children at the YMCA weren’t sure what to think of her, she said. She would talk to them about how much sugar there is in soda, or ways to chop carrots into dipping sticks.

Pretty soon the children started helping, so much so that the Benefiels had to limit the number of kids who could participate in each session. She brought tablecloths and table settings and everyone ate together.

Many of the kids she cooked with had parents working multiple shifts, she said.

She knows what it’s like to grow up in a family where the kids and parents have different cultural experiences. Her mother is German, and her father was an American born to a Russian immigrant mother. They moved to the U.S. when Benefiel was 3. She remembers neighbors in the Rainier Valley area of Seattle who would tell her family to, “Go back to Germany.”

This spring, her classes were aimed at “mostly middle school and high school with an eye on the adults,” she said. “It’s a real popular thing.”

Recipes included vegetable wraps and pumpkin spread with whole wheat toast. She took inspiration for her volunteering from a Seattle program with a similar mission called Cooking Matters.

Benefiel is passionate about helping people cut back on processed foods and add more fruits and vegetables to their diets, she said. She worries about a world where every food seems to come “from a box or a can,” she said.

The classes at the Casino Road center wrapped up for summer and haven’t started again in the same fashion. Now, Benefiel is in talks with a community group in northeast Snohomish County about a cooking program there, also designed for young people. She’d like to see more volunteers get involved in that effort.

When she and Jim retired, they decided they had worked for many years for themselves, she said. It was time to focus on working for the good of others.

Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com; @rikkiking.

How you can help

The YMCA Casino Road Community Center serves kids, teens and adults, including classes for new immigrants. Volunteers are needed in child care during weekday business hours. Donation needs include books for kids, board games, arts and crafts supplies, and food for daily snacks and meals. For more information on donations or volunteering, contact Alex Costumbrado at 425-493-2435.

To contact Pat Benefiel about helping with cooking classes, contact scifairmom@gmail.com.