CAROLINA ON OUR MIND H A P P E N I N G S AT U N C
C l ass Acts The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History’s oldest program gives underserved K-12 students a boost of confidence By Renee A m broso
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ince he was 2 years old, Cyrus Goldwater wanted to be a chef. “He’s already got his restaurant name [picked out],” says his mother, Savannah Savage. Savannah learned about the Communiversity Youth Program at The Sonja
Cyrus. Chris even added a few other sixth graders to the group of twelve so that the Culbreth Middle School student wouldn’t feel alone. During the pandemic, Savannah, Cyrus and his younger brother Leo Goldwater have cooked meals together each Wednesday, guided by CYP instructors virtually. Volunteers deliver the necessary ingredients to their Carrboro apartment. They’ve learned to make galettes, sushi and chili, among other foods, from Lantern’s James Beard Award-winning owner/ chef, Andrea Reusing, and other local chefs. CYP serves Chapel
Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at UNC from the
parent of a participant and was eager for Cyrus to enroll, excited that he might get to attend their culinary classes at Lantern. Each week, the program’s fourth and fifth graders don aprons Mahlaya Diallo, center, gets instruction from food and nutrition journalist to learn how to grate Toni Tipton-Martin, left, and chef Andrea Reusing, right, during a CYP cheese and measure spices cooking class at Lantern restaurant. in the downtown Chapel Hill restaurant’s kitchen. Hill-Carrboro City There was just one problem – Cyrus was already in sixth grade. Schools students, providing activities such as the cooking classes Christopher Wallace, manager of undergraduate programs and CYP at no cost to families. Other programming, which in pre-pandemic at The Stone Center for the last nine years, made an exception for times was held at University United Methodist Church, includes May/June 2021
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