Our Small World

Our Small World empowers youth in underserved communities through mentorship and culturally grounded education built around the Four C's: Culinary Arts, Culture, Commerce, and Character. Through hands-on culinary experiences that explore diverse cuisines, farm-to-table food systems, and healthy eating, our programs use food as a gateway to conversations about entrepreneurship, financial literacy, etiquette, and life skills, equipping young people with the confidence, practical knowledge, and community support needed to thrive.

Our Small World is built for young boys in underserved communities who need a trade, a table, and a man who shows up every week.

We are built on four things. Culinary arts, a trade in his hands that adults want today, with no degree and no waiting. Culture, where he comes from, said out loud and set on a formal table. Commerce, build it, cost it, sell it, then handle what it made. Character, the spine that holds the other three up.

We piloted in February 2026 at Richmond Police Activities League. Twenty five young people, ages 7 to 13, mixed dough from scratch, broke for lunch, then rolled, cut, fried and ate what they made. We call it the Beignet Lab, and it is still the session that lands hardest. A seven year old and a thirteen year old in the same room, and it held.

We became a fiscally sponsored organization in April 2026 and joined Growing Together Bay Area, a 501(c)(3) public charity, in August 2026. Growing Together takes no percentage of what you give.

Our founder, d'Artagnan Connor III, serves as Program Director and Head of Culinary Arts at Growing Together, where he has taught weekly culinary programming in West Contra Costa schools since February 2025, pre kindergarten through 8th grade, without missing a week. Our Small World is that experience built into a program of its own, for the boys who need it most.

We run twenty young people to two facilitators, never more, because above twenty a facilitator is managing a room instead of teaching a person. Everything is cooked on portable equipment. A propane burner, a portable griddle, a cooler and a generator. No kitchen required, which means we can run in a school, a community center, a diversion program or a custody setting.

Your gift buys ingredients, pays trained facilitators from this community, and puts the next twenty boys through a full cohort.

Our Small World is a fiscally sponsored project of Growing Together Bay Area, a 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 88-2293022. Donations are made to Growing Together Bay Area and restricted to Our Small World, and are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.