Farms Sixth Grader is Cooking for a Chance to Win Cafeteria Makeover

Hartland sixth grader Tony Rizzo is doing his part to help teach kids how to eat healthier by participating in a contest sponsored by Uncle Ben's and the Rachel Ray show. Eleven-year-old Tony and his mom, Yvette, entered their family recipe, Rizzo Gumbo, in a contest that could potentially win a $50,000 cafeteria makeover for .

“He said he would really love a new cafeteria,” Yvette Rizzo said of why her son decided to enter.

It took the Rizzo family more than an hour to create its three-minute video, with Tony wearing a Hartland wrestling shirt to promote his hometown. It shows a healthy and simple version for gumbo.

“We cook a lot,” Yvette Rizzo said. “Gumbo and creole cooking is our favorite, but I just said, why not?”

Along with the cafeteria makeover, the winners would also receive $20,000 in cash and a chance to appear on the Rachel Ray Show in New York, another thing that motivated Tony to enter.

“He just wants to go New York,” Yvette Rizzo said.

A trip to the big city and a chance to be on television is an exciting prospect for Tony, who says he isn’t camera shy at all. He said is also a fan of Rachel Ray.

“Because she kind of looks like my mom,” Tony said.

Yvette Rizzo first heard about the contest while watching actress Angie Harmon talk about her new “Let’s get Kids Cooking” campaign on the Rachel Ray Show.

“The whole concept was, kids have to eat healthy,” Yvette Rizzo said. “Her (Harmon's) perspective was, in order for kids to understand this, they need to get involved, so get them cooking so they can really understand what they’re preparing.”

The Rizzo Gumbo is a traditional recipe that has vegetables, broth and protein. The Rizzo family worked to make it less fattening by taking out certain ingredients.

“By the time we did that,” Yvette Rizzo said. “It was so simplified that I could pretty much give it to him or Sophia (Tony's older sister) and they could prepare it without my help." 

Getting her children involved in the kitchen is typical in Yvette Rizzo’s home and she stresses the need to take a more active role in knowing what you’re feeding the family, especially after she attended a seminar and learned more about today’s food culture.

“It enlightened me how our food has changed what our perspective of what a vegetable is. Like, the tomato sauce on our pizza is considered a vegetable? It’s wrong,” Rizzo said. “We really need to pay better attention to what we’re giving our kids. Everyone’s struggling with ADD and autism and all their stuff and we’re feeding them crap.” 

Watching the Rachel Ray Show and using some of her quick and easy recipes has helped Rizzo feed her family healthy meals, even when she’s on the go and “strapped for time.”

“We eat better,” she said. “We don’t eat great, but better.”

The “Let’s Get Kids Cooking” contest runs for two weeks and Tony is asking Hartland to vote for his recipe daily and help support a local family.