As soon as we have plans for our evangelistic effort completed, and our meetings have begun, we tell the people about our Homemakers' Health Kitchen. This is a cooking school that is decidedly different from anything else they have ever attended, we tell them, and say that many foods will be demonstrated and samples served free to those who come. When this school starts (usually in the second week of the effort), we use about half of one side of our handbill in advertising it, and continue to do this each week throughout the six weeks the school is in session. Usually we have been fortunate in holding our meetings in a tabernacle, theater, or auditorium in which our control of the building has permitted us to carry on this cooking-school program without interference from others. Thursday night has proved the most convenient night in our evangelistic programs for this work.
We select two of the merchants in our part of the city, and after prayer go to them and present what we have in mind in the way of the cooking school. They already know that a large meeting is in progress. We endeavor to connect with the bigger firms that are well known, because of the strength that this gives our cause and setup.
In our cooking school just closed, one company allowed us $75 in groceries, fresh fruits, and vegetables for the six Thursday evenings. Another concern supplied two gas ranges and a large electric refrigerator. They delivered them, made the connections, and took them away at the conclusion of our school. In return for this we advertised both of these companies on our handbills each week, as sponsors. The grocery company carried the Loma Linda Health Foods* which we made a center of our demonstration, and we instructed the people to go there to purchase these foods. The stoves and the refrigerator were demonstrated during the cooking school.
This advertising gets into the local newspapers, and I have also announced the firms over my radio program. Thus they get a large volume of publicity among a class of people that they might not otherwise reach. We have found them very well satisfied in all instances through the years. In fact, the present grocery company has just completed the fourth cooking school with us.
The Loma Linda Food Company has supplied us with all the foods and samples necessary in connection with the groceries received, so that our health foods become the basis for the entire menu program. In return, the Loma Linda Company has received a greater volume of business, and additional stores have added their line because of the demand made by the customers who attended the cooking school.
Mrs. Spear has charge of the cooking school, and gives her lectures while she is demonstrating. In fact, she is simply illustrating her lectures by preparing and cooking the food on the platform during the two hours from seven to nine o'clock.
Our cooking school, or health program, is opened with a few minutes' song service, to make it more like the meetings on the other evenings of the week. A short prayer is offered, and by seven-fifteen Mrs. Spear is ready to begin her work. Before passing the paper plates, spoons, napkins, cups, or whatever service is used in this particular demonstration, we take up a regular evening offering, as we do on our evangelistic evenings. We have used sound motion pictures on health and foods to advantage. At times, however, the program has gone over better without them. Where it is possible, we spread our seats out so that the servers can pass freely while serving. Our audience is blocked off in squares. Each usher is in charge of a square, and sees that his section is properly served by those appointed as waitresses.
We mimeograph copies of all the recipes demonstrated, and these are passed out each evening. Also we often have copies of our health magazines which we give out to the first fifty men who go to the bookstand. In this way we interest the men, and we have had a large group of them attending our school.
Another feature that is very important is securing the name and address of everyone present. We have found the following to be the most satisfactory system we have ever used. We have tickets printed with a serial number and stub. Everyone, including the youngsters, is given a ticket. Each one is to fill in his name and address and drop the ticket in a box, but keep the stub, which has the serial number. Just before closing the meeting, we draw out the first name, and present that person with one of our large cookbooks. Then we draw out five more names and present each of these with a small cookbook. At times we have taken out fifty more names, read off the numbers as hastily as possible, and asked those people to go to the bookstand and call for a health journal.
We have also used another plan in some of our meetings to stimulate attendance, presenting everyone who attends the six sessions of the cooking school with a twenty-five-cent cookbook. You will get many to attend once, or twice, or even up to five times, but in our experience out of two or three thousand people who attend our meetings, not more than one hundred have attended the cooking school the entire six times.
This method can be varied as seems best in the particular locality, but it is one sure way to get nearly everyone's name. After taking out all the Adventist names, we go through the cards with our Bible workers and visitors and ascertain how many of these people attend the Sunday night lectures on prophecy, when we regularly take up names.
During the twenty-odd years that we have been following this plan, we have found that those who attend the cooking school take their stand firmly on health reform, and that rarely ever do those converts have any difficulty in freely or fully accepting the Spirit of prophecy. It is amazing how much prejudice is broken down, and how informal and free the people feel, on these Thursday nights. To me it is a grave matter to bring people into the church, take away all of their flesh foods, their tea, coffee, and condiments, and yet in turn give them no constructive program to follow. I see no answer to this point except to teach people how to plan and prepare food that will supply all their needs, in accordance with the principles of healthful living.
Anyone who puts on a program of this kind will surely have opposition, and it means a great deal of work, but when, as a result, you get real Seventh-day Adventists who believe in health reform and rejoice in the Spirit of prophecy, you know that you are putting pillars in the church that will stand the stress and strain of these latter days.
