Last year, when Rene Safarova-Gonzalez opened the doors to Bambino Chef at 213 Newark Ave. to kids from the Jersey City Boys and Girls Club, she got the shock of her life. “These were 20 or 30 kids from the lowest-income families in the city, and they lived right around the corner from here,” she said.
A veteran of the Manhattan financial district, Safarova-Gonzalez opened her business in what she thought was a relatively upscale part of Jersey City. While she deliberately offered to help kids she knew were impoverished, she didn’t expect to find them living side by side with the most affluent people in the city.
Her business offers cooking classes for kids. But over the last two years since opening her doors, she has been involved in a number of programs designed to help those who have the least in the city.
Bringing kids from the Boys and Girls Club around at Christmas is something she hopes will become an annual tradition. She is also involved with the Jersey City Police Department’s toy drive, and makes visits to various schools around the city, giving lessons to children – as well as the parents of children – on cooking good and healthy food.
This is not to say that she doesn’t let kids cook fun stuff, which includes holiday cookies.
Two cultures meet
“Last year, some of the kids who came here as part of the Boys and Girls Club program asked me if they could take some of the cookies home to their brothers and sisters,” she said. “Then I realized these were families who didn’t have enough to eat.”
She said some of the classes she offers this time of year involve making holiday sweets.
“I just didn’t realize how much of a need there was.” – Rene Safarova-Gonzalez
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Calling her business “a cooking studio,” Safarova-Gonzalez normally offers a variety of events, from cooking lessons for kids, young adults and families, to baby and bridal showers and birthday parties.
A Newport resident, with three of her own kids to take care of, she said it was always a dream that she could make a living cooking and working with kids. But the charity aspect came later, when she began looking around for ways to give back to a community that helped her make her own dreams come true.
“I just didn’t realize how much of a need there was,” she said, crying during the interview.
Working with the local youth foundations and local schools, she said part of her goal is to make sure that no kid goes hungry. She said she wants to incorporate baking sales to raise money for programs that benefit hungry kids.
One program she’s seeking to get involved with says that a dollar can buy ten meals for needy kids.
“If we can raise as much as $200 or $300 that helps a lot,” she said. “I want kids that I deal with to understand that people care about them. These are kids that live in the same town as I do, and they need to know that there are people who care.”
She said she has brought free cooking classes to Golden Door charter school, Cordera school and Public School No. 3.
Cooking, she said, fits in with the lessons many kids have in classes, allowing them to use motor skills and well as math skills.
“I did free demonstrations at each school,” she said. “I showed them how to make kid-friendly, simple, healthy meals that are not time-consuming and do not cost a lot.”
These activities cost her business money to buy supplies, she said, although she has a number of volunteers that help her at various functions.
“This is the strange part of it,” she said. “I have a background in finance, but when it comes to this business, I hate the financial part, such as looking at projections. I just want to do what I do.”
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.