Mary Jane’s Cooking School, Inc., is a registered charity located in the Province of Manitoba, Canada (Registered Charity No. 87220 2429 RR0001). The school originated in the early 1990’s with the coming together of four women, each of whom had a special interest in promoting healthful homes in healthy communities. Of the four, Mary Jane Eason, a community nutritionist, was particularly concerned
about the ways in which modern lifestyles had denigrated the activities of home-making, basic nutritional cooking, maintaining a clean home setting, and nurturing family members to become contributing participants in the care of the natural and human environment. Together Mary Jane, counsellor Wilhelmina Howes, dietitian Diane Yu, and anti-poverty activist Laura Steiman pooled their resources and set to work to establish the basis of a model home environment in which their values could be shared with people of all backgrounds and ages. In addition to the home making skills there was a growing concern amongst the women that the trends toward use of chemicals in foods was matched by the effects of pollutants in the air and in the soil, and that these trends all posed significant threats to the health and well being of people, animals, and the natural environment. Thus the program of Mary Jane’s Cooking School was extended to include education about the interaction of earth, air, soil, and water, and about how these elements of the Earth could and must be protected.
