Cooks & Books Kicks off Summers in Kansas

Cooking lessons and good books are the perfect ingredients for a successful summer lunch program in one Kansas district. The Cooks & Books program began as a collaboration between Wamego Unified School District 320’s food service director and the city’s library director and has become something that members of the community look forward to each year.  

Now in its third year, Cooks & Books was modeled after the public library’s take-and-make craft program that started during the COVID pandemic.  

“We put together ingredient bags with everything the child needs to make the recipes at home. Families pick up the ingredients at Wamego’s Library every Tuesday from the beginning of June until mid-July,” said Laura Fails, Food Service Director for USD 320 Wamego.

At the start of the program each family gets one toolkit bag and then every Tuesday they pick up the “Take and Make” bags. The toolkits contain kitchen tools for the recipes, an activity booklet and an oven mitt made by a group of quilters in the area. 

“It is amazing how local businesses and organizations want to help with this project. Hudson Cream Flour made little 2-pound bags of flour and donated enough for the program, while Grandma Hoerners donated jars of locally made jelly, and our local 4-H chapter purchased the measuring cups and spoons” said Fails.

With the help of her husband, Fails records each week’s recipe and uploads them to the Nutrition Department’s Facebook page, the library’s website and Facebook page for families to watch and make the recipe at home.  Fails ends each video by saying “See you in the lunch line.” She hadn’t realized that she’d become a celebrity, of sorts, around town. Fails says she was surprised out in the community when a little girl came up to her and recognized her as the lunch lady from the videos.

The Wamego school nutrition department is busy while students are on summer vacation, offering daily summer meals. Each time a student comes for a meal they receive a token. On Fridays, they turn in their tokens to get locally-grown produce at the cafeteria’s farm stand to bring home to their families. 

On Wednesdays, members of the community can find Laura Fails at the City’s Community Market, there she helps with the kids’ activities and has an opportunity to interact with families and answer questions about the district’s nutrition program.

Coming this fall, a new after-school cooking club will be starting at Wamego USD 320’s middle school.