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Learn About Excellence in Manual Crafts

Kings of Pastry offers a glimpse into France's MOF pastry competition, an institution which celebrates culinary excellence. The MOF foundation was formed to help acknowledge excellence in manual craftsmanship as equal to academic excellence. Learn about vocational education and careers in the culinary arts around the country and in your own communities.

Host a Kings of Pastry screening for young people and follow the film with a conversation about achieving excellence.

Compare American approaches to food, cooking, dining and farming with practices in other countries. Discuss which approach is likely to provide the best outcomes in terms of health, happiness and economics.

Explore why the United States emphasizes zero-sum competitions (where only one person can win and everyone else loses) and what might be gained or lost if there were more competitions like the MOF in which everyone who achieves excellence wins. Assess the formal and informal competitions that exist in your community and think about what they offer participants.

Volunteer with a vocational program near you. To find a program, search by location at Career Advantage, a comprehensive resource for information on vocational schools. Also consider volunteer opportunities at the Association for Career and Technical Education.

Stay up to date on state and local efforts to improve the quality of career and technical education programs, especially with respect to the quality improvements outlined in the Perkins Act. Visit the online action center of the ACTE and use tools that provide step-by-step directions and examples that will help you reach out to policymakers at the local, state and federal levels, as well as your community and media.

Apply to be part of The Rotary Foundation's Group Study Exchange program, a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for businesspeople and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange ideas and observe how their vocations are practiced abroad.

Support the efforts of the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) and the ACTE.