BY KAREN BOSSICK
Belly up to the kitchen at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the new “At the Table” exhibition with The Center’s curators.
Then stick around for a photo/lecture titled “Cooking Shouldn’t Kill.”
The Center will hold a free tour of its exhibition from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. tonight—Thursday, Jan. 3--at its Ketchum location, 191 5th St. East.
Various pieces of art examine the role of the kitchen in shaping our memories of home and our families’ rituals.
Following the tour, two women will offer a free talk about their efforts to cut the number of deaths among children with safe fuel-efficient stoves. The talk will start at 6:30 p.m.
Nancy Hughes and Taylor Rixon will share the story of how StoveTeam International began with a Rotary matching grant to invent a small portable stove they named the Ecocina. That small Rotary club project has transformed into an international award-winning charity.
StoveTeam International has developed factories in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico, which together have manufactured more than 71,000 affordable stoves that have improved the lives of more than a half-million individuals.
The stoves have eliminated the smoke from indoor cooking fires, which contribute to one of the leading causes of death in children under age five. Daily cooking over an open fire is the equivalent of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, killing more than eight times as many people as malaria.
Additionally, the use of the stoves has removed 900 tons of carbon from the atmosphere and cut down on deforestation as families no longer need as much firewood for cooking.
The stove has been awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Partnership for Clean Indoor Air Award for Developing Local Markets for creating local employment while reducing air pollution.
And Hughes was honored as a Rotary White House Champion of Change. She’s been featured on the PBS NewsHour and in a 2017 National Geographic special. She also is a CNN Hero and the recipient of the prestigious International Purpose Prize.