Sydney’s Our Big Kitchen – a project of the Yeshiva Centre, the regional Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters – has joined forces with the Australian National Rugby League’s Wests Tigers to raise awareness of childhood obesity.

According to a report on the Jwire website, two members of the hometown team took an hour off their preseason training this week to tour the soup kitchen and food distribution center with Rabbi Dovid Slavin. Blake Ashford and Mark Flanagan joined the ball club’s community projects officer, Nick Hurley, in donning aprons and chefs hats before getting to work preparing healthful cookies.

Slavin, Our Big Kitchen’s CEO, explained that the project will see rugby players visiting local schools in a push for children to improve their healthy eating habits. Youngsters who provided the best recipes would win prizes, he said.

After their tour, the players ate lunch at the soup kitchen.

“Your talent is a very special gift from G‑d,” Slavin told the pair. “As with all gifts comes responsibility. In this case, it’s to be a role model to the many who look up to you.”