Real Men Cook Chicago Co-founder Yvette Moyo Gillard Talks About Father's Day and Chicago

For the past 20 years in Chicago, Father's Day has gotten the recognition it deserves thanks to events like Real Men Cook. Captivate Marketing Group hosted the 21st year of Real Men Cook. But it was the founders who created and celebrated this cooking, health and united tradition of bringing fathers together for the past two decades. One-half of the founders, Yvette Moyo Gillard, talked about the creation of the event with her former husband and business partner, Kofi Moyo, and those who made Real Men Cook what it is today.

Shamontiel: Tell me about how the event started. I know it started in 1990 on Father's Day, but who was the mastermind behind the brand?

Yvette Moyo Gillard: I'm the marketer behind the brand. I had a history of doing major events for the magazine I had worked for, which was Dollars & Sense magazine. We always did major events with that, and when I left the company, we created an event marketing company. We did a lot of work for major corporations until like the 10^th year. We just couldn't handle both our marketing and PR activity for other companies and Real Men Cook so we made the choice to forward Real Men Cook and to actually change the way Father's Day was celebrated in this country.

S: How did Real Men Cook come along?

YMG: We heard about an event in New York a woman named Lana Turner had created to raise money for her son to attend art school. It featured men cooking, and it was actually Michael Scott, who was recently killed, that gave us the information that something like this was going on in New York. He thought it would be perfect for us considering my event marketing background. I investigated and asked Lana if we could do a similar event in Chicago, and she said so many people had taken the idea without contacting her. She gave us her blessings. I shared with her that I was going to change it from an evening, single women's event to a Father's Day event where men could be celebrated for their contributions.

S: What made you want to celebrate fathers?

YMG: It was a joke on the calendar. It was probably the most forgotten special day on the calendar 20 years ago. Father's Day made 100 years old last year when we were 20 years old. Eighty years later it was still not celebrated the way I thought it should be, and I had a huge family. I knew that my child's father and the father of my bonus children were very committed dads. Just because they weren't in the home didn't mean they weren't committed fathers. That was the story in our community that more families were becoming blended and fathers were not necessarily the head of the household. I didn't want kids to feel undervalued on Father's Day.

S: I know you all have Real Men Cook locations all over the place, but the hometown was Chicago, right?

YMG: The 10^th anniversary was when we decided to expand to other cities, and that was a planned, calculated expansion because we could see that this was a message that was universal. Fathers needed to have something of meaning on Father's Day.

S: What made you all decide on Real Men Cook as opposed to Real Men Build or Real Man Paint, or whatever. What made you decide on cooking?

YMG: (Kofi), my husband at the time (pictured left with Gillard), was an excellent cook. That was what attracted me to Lana's event because it was about real men cooking. When we heard about Lana's event, it resonated because we knew men that cooked well. When my father cooked at home, it was like an event. When women cook, it's sort of like a job. When men cook, it's a celebration, and we thought it wouldn't be like your average event that might die down. People would never lose interest in men cooking for a cause.

S: In 1990, did you expect the event to grow this big?

YMG: We didn't expect, but we hoped that we could make a difference that would impact people all over the world-not just this country but all over the world because a lot of men don't talk about what they feel and what they think and their love, particularly African-American men. We thought this would be a way to demonstrate the voices of men, to have people hear and see and feel when men get involved in the community to make a difference.

S: Past Real Men Cook sessions included free health sessions. How did that come about?

YMG: That came about in the eighth year. We were actually working with a guy named Joe Harrington who is now a leader at the Illinois Department of Public Health. Joe came onboard to do some free health screenings with us. All of our cities where Real Men Cook take place have health and wellness provisions.

S: I know you expected to get your everyday dad and people you knew. Were you surprised when you started seeing more notable faces in the crowd?

YMG: No, we weren't surprised. That was calculated. The marketing strategy included my friends that were well-connected women to go out and recruit 10 men each to cook. There were women like Merri Dee that used to be at Channel 9 [WGN]; Robin Robinson of FOX News Chicago; Deborah Crable, who at that time was host of "Ebony/JET Showcase"; and a host of women. Some of the men that were included in the first year were Bill Campbell from Channel 7