Take a successful community meals program, mix in some youthful energy, and you get a new dish on the menu at Barre's Local Agricultural Community Exchange (LACE). Kids can now participate in the community-connecting culinary action with LACE's five-week cooking class. In addition to learning food prep and meal planning, participants see, firsthand, the connections to the farms and fields that feed them. Kids will discover that "food is a celebration," said AmeriCorps State member Anna Weisberg who organized the effort. Students will visit a farm, plant seeds and plan the menu for the March 23 weekly Wednesday Open Table community meal offered at LACE on North Main Street in Barre.

Junior LACE F.O.O.D. Cooking Class: Saturdays, 10 a.m.-noon, March 5-April 2. Ages 9-13. $65, scholarships available. Info, 476-4276.