Common Threads

Founded by Celebrity Chef Art Smith, artist Jesus Salgueiro and Linda Novick O’Keefe in 2003, Common Threads educates children on the importance of nutrition and physical well-being, empowering them to be change agents in their families, schools and communities across the country. By providing children with a toolkit of knowledge and skills, Common Threads’ programs help prevent childhood obesity and reverse the trend of generations of non-cookers, getting America’s kids cooking for life!

Since inception, we have reached 141,060 individuals; provided 1,265,967 hours of cooking and nutrition education; served 1,138,762 healthy meals and snacks; and trained 2,800 teachers. This past school year and summer, we partnered with 525 schools and community-based organization sites in six cities to provide education and healthy meals and snacks to 48,300 underserved 3rd-8th graders. And this year we expect to reach over 70,000 kids in eight cities – Austin, Chicago, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, and Washington

The knowledge children gain in Common Threads’ programs empowers them to make healthier choices and become change agents in their families, schools and communities. Program evaluation results for 2014-2015 showed that our two largest programs - our Small Bites nutrition education curriculum and our flagship Cooking Skills and World Cuisine program - effectively improve student nutrition knowledge (in 79% of students with room to improve) and student preferences for healthy foods (in 88% of students) and increase student consumption of vegetables (62% improved in just one session).

Through partnerships, flexible and expanded curricula, and alignment to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards, and by working with district food nutrition departments to pair our curriculum with student feeding programs, we are helping empower more kids than ever to cook for life. To learn more, visit