A group of students are growing a garden, cooking vegetables and learning important lessons about life at the Institute for Community Leadership Jack Hunter O’Dell Education Center in Covington.

The Circular Roots Project at the 20-acre center has brought together more than 50 youths and families from the Kent area and across the West Coast. The project and the institute advocates a nonviolent and literacy-based program to develop leadership skills

Roy Wilson is the executive director at the institute and Nyla Rosen is the administrative assistant.

“The purpose of the project is to grow leadership,” Rosen said. “We grow ourselves by growing seeds and vegetables and learning to cook.”

The project brings grandmothers from diverse cultures to teach the students how to cook.

“We want to teach the kids to cook by hand from scratch,” Rosen said. “They learn where the food comes from and how it grows.”

Thursday, Ms. Augusta was teaching the students how to cook chicken with onions, red peppers, carrots and greens. The group also learned the secret of pickling beets.

Over the following weeks other grandmothers will bring their cooking secrets to the institute to teach the students about the lessons of life through food and culture.

The Web site for the institute stated it was founded in 1995 and the curriculum is based on the teachings of Martin Luther King and Ghandi and others who taught peace.