Nourishing young minds one delicious bite at a time
Shown in photo: Hands-on learning is at the core of Montage Health's Kids Eat Right program.
Pulling out all the stops in hopes of encouraging your child to chow down on some fruits and vegetables is a time-honored tradition. It begins early. As in, high-chair early.
Remember circling the airplane with the baby spoon (sound effects included) before sticking the perfect bite-sized landing of mashed banana in your smiling infant’s mouth? Then there’s the hide-the-peas-in-the-mashed potatoes tactic. Followed by pureed — invisible! — vegetable goodness in everything from pasta sauce to smoothies.
There has even been bargaining: one green bean, one sour gummy worm. And the superhero inspiration: “Superman eats broccoli before every adventure.”
If you want to make healthy eating more about desire than clever coaxing, Montage Health’s Kids Eat Right program can help. The hands-on nutrition and physical activity program puts a fun-filled twist on healthy eating and exercise education with in-school cooking sessions, family workshops, community outreach, and bilingual resources.
Sometimes the ingredients are completely new to them . . . But they always try it. And they feel proud to create something themselves. — Raquel Santillan Maldonado, program coordinator, Kids Eat Right
At the heart of Kids Eat Right is experiential learning, where students take an active role in assembling recipes with fresh, nutritious ingredients. They mix, measure, and marvel at what they can make — and eat.
Scenes from recent workshops include a fourth grader creating cauliflower ceviche then happily making short work of it, and a student grabbing the “fresh fruit burrito” recipe card and taking it home so his family can prepare and snack on it together. Then there was the fifth grader carefully dabbing his plate edges with a paper towel like it was the final round of a cooking show before presenting his creation.
“Kids Eat Right is special in that it can turn reluctant eaters into culinary creators,” says Alexis Diaz-Infante, community school coordinator for Frank Paul Elementary School in Salinas, which hosted 16 Kids Eat Right workshops in the past two years. “Once they help prepare it, they're more likely to eat it.”
And it's completely free for families and schools
Thanks to that support, Kids Eat Right delivered programming to 97 classrooms at 29 schools and 13 school districts across Monterey County during the 2024–2025 school year.
What does Kids Eat Right offer?
Recurring family workshops
At community centers across the county, Kids Eat Right holds free, family-friendly cooking sessions and outdoor adventures like hula class, flower picking, and ranger-led adventure hikes.
Five-week programs for fourth and fifth graders
Once per week for five weeks, Kids Eat Right rolls into classrooms with bags of fresh ingredients. Each session is an hour-long adventure in healthy eating and physical activity.
None of the recipes require heat, and students are taught to measure, chop, and prep dishes they’ve often never seen, let alone tasted.
“Sometimes the ingredients are completely new to them — things like sushi tacos, parfaits, or bean salads,” says Raquel Santillan Maldonado, program coordinator for Kids Eat Right. “But they always try it. And they feel proud to create something themselves.”
Classes also include active play to promote an hour of movement each day.
One-time classroom workshops
For kindergarten through third grade, as well as sixth grade, Kids Eat Right provides one-time sessions that lay the groundwork for healthy habits, kitchen confidence, and a lifetime of better bites.
“It’s like an introduction to the program,” Santillan Maldonado says. “We create recipes like ‘friendship fruit salad’ to get younger kids thinking about how healthy food can be fun, too.”
Participation at events
You’ll also find Kids Eat Right at local events and community gatherings. Their booth is known for sharing bilingual resources, healthy tips, and the crowd-favorite “blender bike” — a pedal-powered smoothie machine that proves healthy food and exercise make a great team.
