Lucky middle-school students in Waianae and Palolo are taking home free bags of fresh local produce — plus lessons on how to cook them — through a Hawai‘i Agricultural Foundation pilot program, Kids Cooking Local.

At Waianae Intermediate School and Jarrett Middle School, 40 participants in the After-School All-Stars program are getting cooking lessons from professional chefs. Roy’s Ko Olina executive chef Darryl Shinogi, long a supporter of culinary programs for youth, shares his knowledge at Waianae. Chef Matt Young from Hula Grill Waikiki takes the helm at Jarrett. The focus is on nutritious, delicious dishes using products from local farms.

Denise Yamaguchi, executive director of the foundation, said her organization worked for nearly a year with the after-school program to develop Kids Cooking Local. They hope it will have a multigenerational impact.

“Our aim is not just for kids to learn to cook, but for them to teach their parents how to use local ingredients, how to cook with it,” she said.

Yamaguchi said C&S Wholesale Grocers is donating canned protein products to add to the food bags, which will broaden the ways the produce can be prepared. The bags, from the foundation’s Local Inside community- supported agriculture program, will go to students twice monthly, filled with enough fruit and vegetables to feed three to four people.

The program will run for six weeks during the semester and will feature a gardening unit as well. It will repeat next semester, and Yamaguchi hopes to expand the project if the pilot proves successful.

Kids Cooking Local rounds out the foundation’s educational programs for youth. It has already introduced to Hawaii classrooms the Veggie U curriculum for fourth-graders, a hands-on seed-planting, growing and harvesting experience which offers lessons in science, health, math, reading, writing and social studies; and for high-schoolers the In the Fields program, which introduces students to the agriculture industry.