Sing Karaoke and Help Local Kids Eat Healthy

A karaoke event this weekend will help local kids learn more about eating healthy.

Cooking with Kidz is hosting a karaoke fundraiser Saturday at  from 6 to 10 p.m. There will be a selection of wines and cheese, appetizers, premium crafted beer, door prizes, raffle drawings and an Italian crooner.

Tickets are $25 plus $5 raffle tickets. You can order tickets at 630-337-7491.

Cooking with Kidz is a non-profit created by Sean Karaffa, a chef and former teacher. The organization hosts hands-on parties, events and classes that teach children how to cook healthy meals.

Cooking with Kidz will teach classes to the students at in Woodridge this fall and hopes to have classes with the in the future. 

Classes will cover how to read food labels, budgeting and planning a dinner, sanitation and hands-on cooking. The curriculum will culminate in a class dinner when students will cook for their families.

Karaffa will also present Cooking with Kidz to the on May 15. 

Karaffa currently works as a chef for ManorCare Health Services, a senior living facility in Hinsdale. He has taught third grade, middle school and high school. Karaffa studied at the now-Le Cordon Bleu in Chicgao and has worked in the kitchen at Ponderossa, Wendy’s and Rick Bayless’ Tortas Frontera.

“I had an opportunity to learn and be connected with a guy (Bayless) who is just incredible and in love with healthy food,” Karaffa said.

His passions for cooking and teaching blend together in his Cooking with Kidz classes, he said. 

“When I’m in the room with kids of any age, there’s just this excitement,” Karaffa said. “I’m able to grab their attention, and we can do so many things with the kids and make it a lifelong experience for them.”

Karaffa hopes that experience will stay with students for years to come.

“As they grow older, they’ll remember us,” Karaffa said. “They’ll be using a recipe and think, ‘I was in Cooking with Kidz and we made the same recipe. I’m going to do this for my family.'”

Cooking with Kidz officially incorporated last year and is on its way to becoming a 501(c)(3) organization. The idea has already struck a chord, Karaffa said.

“We’ve hit on a good concept,” Karaffa said. “Parents don’t want to go out to eat. They want simple recipes that they can feed their kids.”