Because of the growth in population of the Valley in recent years, many programs in the Snoqualmie Valley School District have seen substantial increase in participation. Even the smaller groups, like Twin Falls Middle School’s cooking club, have almost doubled their numbers.

“Because our population has gotten so huge, we are almost double what we’ve started with,” said Laurie Sheldon, paraeducator and advisor for the cooking club at Twin Falls Middle School. “There are 15 kids in each group.”

The cooking club, which has been a staple of the school’s activities since Twin Falls opened in 2008, began when Sheldon was asked to be the advisor by the school’s first principal, Ruth Moen.

Since then, Sheldon has been running the program every year.

“It got brought up as an idea, I thought I could do that and it just kind of blossomed from there,” she said.

For years the club averaged about eight students, broken up into two groups of four that would alternate meeting days on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This year, the club has seen massive growth with more than 30 students looking for a spot. Sheldon said she implemented a limit of 15 students per group this year due to the interest from students.

“It’s a hard limit, because of the space,” she said. “I’m even pushing it, ideally I like having four but because there is a such a demand I increased it.”

Due to the demand, she set Tuesday, Dec. 6, as the registration date and made sure all the students wanting to register had ample time to fill out all the paperwork before the deadline. On registration day, there was an early morning line to submit the club registration forms.

“This year they were lining up at 6:30 in the morning, I have 15 kids on the waiting list right now,” she said.

The club meets for five weeks beginning the first week back from winter break. At each of the meetings, students learn to use an oven and make pizza, cookies, pies, cupcakes, pretzels and more.

Sheldon said she starts the club by giving the students a choice of three different types of food for them to make. This year’s cooking club will also be making ice cream and caramel for the first time.

Sheldon explained that one of the reasons the program has seen growth is because many students don’t get exposure to cooking, or a chance to cook for themselves.

“Because we don’t have a Home Ec program, that’s not in the curriculum anymore for kids. That’s a big reason we get so many kids, because they don’t get that exposure,” she said.

“It speaks to that we need more things like this for kids to be part of and be connected. Hopefully it opens up the possibility to go into the culinary arts at the high school and exposes some of the kids who don’t have the chance to do that at home.”