Welcome, Kimsorn!

“Sometimes life is like making cooking -- it’s not just about getting things together at the beginning or eating sweets at the end. It’s about adding all the ingredients along the way.” 

As we turn our sights towards May and the end of a year-long kitchen journey for so many Brainfood students, we’re also excited to welcome our new YSEALI (Youth Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative) fellow, Kimsorn Ngam.

Like our past fellow, Rex, Kimsorn is with us for just a short month. In Cambodia, he directs evaluations and assessments for This Life Cambodia. At Brainfood, he’ll get to spend time learning how to navigate the Youth Garden, packing some Old Bay kale chips with Homegrown, and seeing Kitchen All Stars class compete in the Chef’s Challenge Graduation.

In his short 3 days as a Brainfood staffer, he’s already given us tips on our evaluations, become a pro metro commuter, and visited the National Zoo and sampled the fast casual fixings at &Pizza. We can’t wait to learn more from Kimsorn in the next month, but for starters, we thought we’d share his thoughtful morning musing on how making cookies at Brainfood can teach us more about life’s journey. His observation after just one day of Brainfood class really spoke to the heart of youth development and the sense of pride we try to instill in our students for being brave enough to learn and grow, even when it seems like that sweet success is so far away. Kimsorn will be blogging about his experiences in just a few weeks, so stay tuned.

Thanks again to the Professional Fellows Program team and American Councils for setting up an incredible cultural exchange and matching us with Kimsorn!