CSM Experience Impacts Intern

Lee Baxter, Samford University
Nutrition and Dietetics Graduate Intern

Cooking Well is our six-week healthy cooking program designed to be a springboard for discipleship and relationship in the communities we serve in partnership with eMeals and Samford University. Lee Baxter, our most recent Cooking Well intern from Samford’s Nutrition and Dietetics Master Program shared some observations from her experience.

"Cooking Well is looking to bring life-long change by engaging face-to-face and building trust in under-served communities with healthy lifestyle encouragement and education. Christian Service Mission has been building relationships with church and community leaders all around Birmingham, and paving the way for Cooking Well to dive into some of the most under-served areas of our city. Cooking Well is an opportunity to teach with purpose and effectively reach a community through a non-threatening platform.

I loved hearing the testimonies from some of the recent course graduates. It was awesome to hear them express their own personal journeys and new levels of success with their health goals and lifestyle changes. I can also see the on-going individual and community impact the program has had by the way they are already teaching and encouraging others. 

Lee teaching the Cooking Well nutrition segment

Cooking Well is tackling health equity barriers head-on and can reach a wide array of groups. Faith is foundational to the success of the program since the local churches are the portals to serving these communities. 

I love the “trifecta” of culinary, nutrition education and fellowship embedded in the Cooking Well class structure. The fellowship component is a key element of support and relationship that underpins the information and skills they learn in the classes. 

I am excited to see how Cooking Well continues to grow and develop and what each group get out of it. It will be diverse in successes as it is diverse in the groups that go through the course. I loved being a part of Cooking Well."

We appreciate Lee's hard work for CSM during her rotation as an intern and on-going involvement with Cooking Well as a volunteer. If you would like more information about Cooking Well, please contact Judy Vann. judy@csmission.org