On February 12, 2019, Brendon Fontaine blew out five candles on a birthday cake. "He loved the cake so much," says his mother, Faith, who lives in Winnipeg with Brendon. "I had to hide it in the back of the fridge."

Brendon's surprise came from Cakes for Kids, a group of home bakers(烘焙师)who know that a simple birthday cake can be uncommon for poor families like the Fontaines.

The group was set up three years ago by Christy Rogowski, a 40-year-old who works in health care software, and her partner, Wendy Singleton. "Imagining a child who wasn't going to have a birthday cake was really upsetting," Rogowski says.

A Facebook call-out for volunteers finally added 150 bakers to their name list. When volunteers first apply(申请), they're asked why they want to do so. "Some people have said that they didn't have a cake on their birthday growing up, and they know how important it is," says Singleton. More commonly, though, they say they want families in need to know that their neighbors care about them.

The names of the cake receivers are provided by community organizations and Winnipeg Child and Family Services. A child might receive a cake because the family is poor. Sometimes a child is sick, leaving the family too busy to make the treat themselves. Cakes also go to children living in foster care（寄养). Jodi Korolyk, a worker with Winnipeg Child and Family Services, has so far ordered birthday cakes for five of the almost 800 kids in their system. "It shows the child they have a lot of people there to support them," she says.

By the end of last year, Cakes for Kids had baked over 575 cakes to mark kids' birthdays, and the baking continues. Rogowski and Singleton are even considering developing the program nationally and also providing cakes for old people who live alone. After all, there's no age difference when it comes to the positive role of a well-timed cake.

Sun Jiarui, a 10-year-old girl from Outang Central Primary School in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, recently becomes famous online for her cooking skills. Sun, who has been learning to cook from her father since she was eight, can now cook more than 50 dishes. The Outang Central Primary School has also gotten Sun and her father to promote the cooking arts to the students.

China’s Ministry of Education has issued the Life Skills Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2022 edition) (《义务教育劳动课程标准(2022 年版)》). In the coming term in September, primary and secondary school students in China will find a new “practical activities” course(劳动课) in their schedule, with at least one class every week.

The new course has three types of tasks: everyday housework, including cleaning, organizing, cooking, and using and repairing home appliances; productive labor, including traditional handicrafts; and volunteer work.

Primary school students will be asked to understand and master the basics of home cooking, from preparing vegetables to finally being able to complete the whole process of home cooking by themselves.

News that primary and secondary school students will learn cooking from September became one of the top trending topics on Sina Weibo, attracting more than 300 million views.

“This reminds me of my life skills class in primary school. I learned to make dumplings and do simple needlework,” one Weibo user commented. “These will be lifelong skills for these kids, helping them develop into well-rounded grown-ups, not just students who are able to take exams,” said another user.

As part of the “double reduction” policy(双减政策) aiming to reduce homework and time spent on after-school private tutoring, life skills education has become a new highlight of education reform.

A Beijing-based educational expert said that education should pay attention to “the progress of individual students” and a change in priority from “the evaluation of results to the process”. “We should use comprehensive assessment to observe each student’s growth and progress, instead of just focusing on exams,” said the expert.