The kitchen at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Renton bustles with the loud chatter and ear-piercing laughter of a dozen middle school girls. The girls, huddled around the island, are chopping away at fruits and trying to figure out how to use the hand mixer.

Celena Nimmo, 17, is weaving in and out of the kitchen, stopping every now and then to answer a question, demonstrate the proper whisking method or to remind the Chatty Cathys to finish their task-in-hand.

Nimmo, a senior at Newport High School, is en route to earning her Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest achievement in Girl Scouting. To earn the award, she is required to create, identify and investigate an issue, come up with a plan to solve it, build a team to help her, and take action to educate and inspire others.

Nimmo has created a six-week cooking class for middle school girls, planning each lesson about various nutritional information, including how to read nutritional labels, understanding healthy fats and the significance of the food pyramid. Each lesson is succeeded by a cooking session, where the girls have hands-on experience with making nutritional foods themselves.

“I have a passion for fitness, wellness and staying healthy,” said Nimmo. “Both my parents have a passion for it as well. I’ve always been into eating healthy and taking care of myself. So I identified one of the issues in the youth to be a lack of knowledge in what kind of food you need and why it’s so important to take care of yourself and eat healthy.”

Nimmo has been busy fundraising, researching, marketing and planning for the event since December.

“I started off with six people in my first class,” Nimmo. “By the second week, it had doubled.”

The middle schoolers aren’t the only ones who are benefiting from this project. According to Nimmo, running the project has been educational and eye-opening.

“I’ve never been in charge of a big project before and have complete control over what happens,” said Nimmo.

“As I prepared my project, I’ve discovered little nuances and details that go into putting such a big project. The most difficult part was keeping everything organized and keeping myself on track, as opposed to someone else telling me what to do; I was my own boss.”

Even though she is busy trying to keep the momentum of the class going (and making sure nobody chops a finger off), you can catch Nimmo occasionally pausing to smile at middle schoolers who are showing off their dishes to each other.

“I know I’m only reaching 12 people, which is so small, but if I can just see these people take away even just one thing that they’re going to change about their lifestyle and leave with the sense of why it’s important to eat healthy now… I’ll be happy with that,” said Nimmo. “It’s really important for young people to understand that you have your whole life ahead of you and that the way you treat your body now impacts the rest of your lifestyle.”