Volunteer Cooking Classes Raise More than $50,000 for Community Services

Seattle, Washington (PRWEB) March 06, 2015

What started as a simple tamale-making class at Seattle’s El Centro de la Raza (The Center for People of all Races), a bilingual community center in South Seattle, has expanded into a “volunteer cooking school” with Latino and South American cultural cooking classes that have raised more than $ 50,000 to support bilingual human and community services. Based on the success of this model, Brown Paper Tickets is offering it’s “Nine-Step Recipe to a Successful Cooking Class” workshop at no cost to any community center or nonprofit to use as a fundraiser at http://community.brownpapertickets.com/wp/9-step-recipe-successful-cooking-classes/.

“We began producing our very popular tamale-making classes in 2010, and already we have sold more than $ 50,000 in cooking class registrations that fund community services,” said Ashley Haugen, a coordinator at El Centro de la Raza. “Brown Paper Tickets helped us to achieve that level of fundraising success by offering workshops teaching home cooks from our community how to share their best family recipes and traditions as fundraisers supporting our community services.”

El Centro De La Raza’s spring 2015 cultural cooking class schedule, including tamale, pozole and paella classes, will be announced as part of a free ground-breaking celebration for Plaza Roberto Maestas, a $ 42 million affordable housing project, March 6 at 11 a.m. Plans for the new community center include an expanded teaching and demonstration kitchen for the volunteer cooking class fundraisers to continue.

Individual classes cost $ 65-$ 90, including a copy of the recipes as well as the opportunity to learn the cooking techniques and cultural traditions associated with preparing and serving guests the most popular dishes from Latin and South America. The 2015 schedule offers classes in how to make pork and vegetarian tamales, pozole, chili verde, ceviche and paella, and classes have recently been offered on how to make authentic tortillas, salsa, enchiladas, carnitas, and more. Home cooks from the community volunteer their time, talents and their family’s best recipes, often passed down for generations.

“I have been cooking since I was old enough to pull a chair up to the counter in grandmas kitchen,” said Patrick Nelson, who created a 15-year culinary career by working his way up from dishwasher to executive chef, and now serves as the Food and Farm Specialist for Brown Paper Tickets. Nelson noticed El Centro having success with their tamale classes, and suggested the “Nine-Step Recipe to a Successful Cooking Class” workshops as a means of raising more funds for the center’s programs. When El Centro’s organizers were open to his idea, he created the curriculum and Brown Paper Tickets supported his work in producing the workshops and helping El Centro de la Raza to organize their volunteer-based cooking school.

“We like working with Brown Paper Tickets because they do more to help us to be successful, our customers to be happy, and the community to prosper, as 5 percent of their profits from every class registration go to charities in a category of every ticket buyers’ choice,” said Haugen. “They are more like our partner than a ticket vendor, helping us to limit our costs so that with every class registration, as much as possible goes directly to services to help those in need.”

“This program takes excellent volunteer cooks from the community and turns them into teachers,“ Nelson continued. “If you weren’t lucky enough to have a grandmother who could teach you all of these great recipes, now you have El Centro de la Raza.”

The El Centro De La Raza’s spring 2015 cooking class descriptions, schedule and online registration can be found at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/13781. Brown Paper Tickets’ multi-lingual event concierges are available to answer questions and assist with class registration and directions 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in English, Spanish and French, at 1-800-838-3006.

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About El Centro De La Raza: El Centro de la Raza is a voice and a hub for Seattle and Martin Luther King, Jr. County’s (a.k.a. King County’s) Latino community as we advocate on behalf of our people and work to achieve social justice. Through our comprehensive programs and services, we empower members of the Latino community as fully participating members of society. We also work to raise awareness with the general public, and government, business and civic leaders about the needs of the Chicano/Latino community in the United States.

About Brown Paper Tickets: Brown Paper Tickets (brownpapertickets.com) changed the lives of event organizers and ticket buyers around the world in 2000, as the first to provide free, professional online ticketing and event registration free for anyone organizing any event and the lowest fee for ticket buyers, while donating 5 percent of our profits from every ticket sold. Our mission is to help event organizers connect with fans, gather capacity for causes, strengthen communities and, in short, to help you to change the world through live, local events. We named our business model Not-Just-For-Profit, because making the most profit is never our priority. Creating elegant technology and providing savvy, professional, personal counsel to make your event as successful as it can be is our priority. Learn more at http://community.brownpapertickets.com/press/.