Jurni finds recipe for life through kids cooking program
- deansimpson7
- Apr 3
- 3 min read
*Warning: This story contains details about mental health struggles, including eating disorders. If this could be a trigger for you, please proceed with caution.
BY KIRRALEE NICOLLE
Sixteen-year-old Jurni Young is a volunteer with the Kids in the Kitchen program at Tarrawanna Salvos in Wollongong, NSW. She never considered volunteering until her life took some unexpectedly hard turns.
Jurni first encountered Kids in the Kitchen as a 10-year-old when she met Tarrawanna Corps volunteer manager Lyn Mather. Lyn heads up the popular children’s cooking program, founded by Major Cathryn Williamson at Cowra Corps (Central NSW) in 2017.
When COVID-19 arrived in Australia, the impact on young Jurni, both physically and mentally, was immense.
“During the COVID years, I developed anxiety and was really depressed with the whole idea of it,” Jurni says. “With that, then I developed an eating disorder, anorexia (nervosa). I didn’t go to school for another two years. So, I missed out on my whole entire high school life until up until Year Nine.”
Missing school Jurni began to be hospitalised intermittently to treat the anorexia, and with the addition of missing out on school, life felt bleak. When lockdowns ended, she then returned to the Tarrawanna Corps to begin attending youth group.
“Lyn heard about me struggling with COVID and my eating and being in hospital a lot,” Jurni says. “She reached out [to] see how she could help me and how everyone at The Salvation Army could help me in any way, and my family.”
Jurni says that even though it was clear Lyn didn’t have much familiarity with eating disorders, she had an idea of something Jurni could do.
“She was like, ‘What if I gave you the opportunity to come and do some leading at Kids in the Kitchen, just to get you out of the house and doing something again?’ because I wasn’t going to school or anything. And so, I started at the beginning of 2022.”
Australia Day award From there, Jurni’s discovery of volunteering flourished into what is now a passion and a driving force towards her life goals. Despite further hospitalisations, she has continued on a path that led to her being awarded the City of Wollongong’s Rising Star Award as part of this year’s Australia Day honours.
She has been volunteering with Kids in the Kitchen for three years and has volunteered over 150 hours as a medical cadet with St John’s Ambulance. With an ever-growing love for emergency medicine, Jurni hopes to be a paramedic when she graduates school later this year.
“I love it,” she says. “It’s what I want to do.”
Jurni has proven this through her educational choices as well. For the last few years of high school, she has chosen to attend a secondary school with a strong emphasis on individual learning and research-based study. As part of this, she has focused on both emergency medicine topics and research on why children thrive in kitchen learning environments. She has even designed a specialised freestanding cookbook to make the cooking experience easier for children.
Jurni says her experience of being unwell for so long has driven her to put her time into work, which benefits others. She also wants to advocate for those with eating disorders.
“I want to come back from this and help as many people [as I can] in different ways,” she says.
*If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, you can contact The Butterfly Foundation on 1800 33 4673 or at www.butterfly.org.au.
If you are feeling suicidal, you can call Lifeline at www.lifeline.org.au or call 131 114.
For general youth mental health, contact Headspace at headspace.org.au/online-and-phone-support/ or call 1800 650 890.
