Naples resident Ron Duprat competed on last season's "Top Chef." Trae Patton/Bravo

Naples resident Ron Duprat competed on last season's "Top Chef." Trae Patton/Bravo

NAPLES — Chef Ron Duprat, a Naples resident and past contestant on the hit Bravo television program “Top Chef,” is making a difference nationally and internationally with food — and not just through his restaurant work.

Earlier this year, Duprat began an initiative called Hearts for Haiti. In it, participating restaurants around the country donated up to 10 percent of their Valentine’s Day proceeds to Haiti earthquake relief and recovery effort.

“We reached out to prestigious colleagues and asked them to join the fundraising effort,” Duprat said. “There was a tremendous response from restaurants in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia and New Jersey. It was an important source of funding during the early stages of relief in Haiti.”

The effort raised more than $50,000 for relief in Haiti.

Duprat wants to go further; he’s building a foundation for a future culinary school. Duprat is pushing to establish a culinary training that will recruit 50 aspiring young Haitian culinarians and engage them in two intensive training sessions focusing on culinary art and work. By these he hopes to address social issues related to marginalized youth in their communities.

Just recently, he joined close to 1,000 chefs on the lawn of the White House in early June to help launch the “Let’s Move” initiative, aimed at ending childhood obesity within a generation. The chefs were welcomed to visit the famous White House garden, where they saw a selection of fresh vegetables being grown. They also learned from White House Executive Chef Sam Kass about First Lady Michelle Obama’s long-standing desire to create a major initiative around health of children as the lynchpin for health of the United States.

Obama spoke to the chef about: the health of children, as influenced by what they eat, and how it impacts how they learn, whether or not they succeed as adults and how it can help combat the $150 billion tab to treat chronic diseases attributed to poor diet.

“It was good to be inspired by the First Lady and she appealed to the part in us that wants to help,” Duprat said.

Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative has four components:

■ getting more information to parents so they can make good choices

■ providing access to quality and affordable food for all and addressing the issue of food desserts

■ incorporating physical movement and activity into every day

■ providing healthy meals at school

At the event, Obama lauded The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, which is designed to expand access to food, especially in low-income families, and provide more nutritious offerings and simplify the administration of food benefits. Her vision involves chef manufacturers, chefs, parents, teachers and leaders all coming together with the goal of having every chef adopt a school and become part of its community to possibly work together with school foodservice workers to improve the quality of what is served to the children.

Duprat recently adopted Pace Center For Girls in Fort Lauderdale. He additionally plans on adopting a school in Naples.

On June 10, Duprat served as a representative and spoke to Congress discussing the dangers of childhood hunger and his request for representatives to pass a strong and fully funded child nutrition reauthorization bill before the end of the year. He notes that nearly one in four struggle with hunger, and with so many American families facing hunger for the first time, ensuring a strong child nutrition bill has never been more important.

Duprat has been cooking for about 20 years, and it was his own way to move out of poverty. His love for food and cooking was born in his grandma’s kitchen in Haiti, and Duprat later was trained in classical French technique in Europe, South America and Florida. He took apprenticeships in Spain, Italy, and Brazil.

In 1989, Duprat settled in the United States and started working in kitchens in Naples, beginning at Little Italy restaurant in East Naples. Over the course of a dozen years, he worked at Frascati’s Italian Restaurant, the Pelican Bay Foundation and La Playa Beach and Golf Resort. Duprat is currently an executive chef at Latitudes Beach Cafe in Hollywood, Fla., although he still lives in Naples.

“I started my journey in Naples and that’s where I am going to finish it,” Duprat said. “I have a strong love for Naples and the place will always be my home.”

Duprat is working on creating a new style of French Caribbean cuisine.

He says he was fortunate enough to take his cooking to the next level and serve as a contestant on the sixth season of “Top Chef.” It didn’t take long for viewers to latch onto the love that Duprat brought to the show. He eventually was told to “pack his knives” before a winner was crowned, but Duprat does not regret a thing about his experience.

“The experience on Top Chef was an opportunity of a life time,” Duprat said. “I learned from being on the show that the sky is my limit.”

Even though Duprat is cooking and living in the United States, he always keeps his home country in the back of his mind. In his free time he works to fill empty stomachs of the poor.

“I never thought or dreamed this would happen to me,” Duprat said. “I lived such a poor life growing up and now I’m speaking to congress, being invited to the White House to be with the First Lady and starting my own cooking school. It is a dream come true and I cannot be thankful enough.”

Here are several of Ron Duprat’s good-for-you recipes for kids:

Mixed berry yogurt ice pops

Ingredients

3/4 cup raspberries

3/4 cup blueberries

3/4 cup strawberries

1/3 cup Splenda

2 7-ounce containers

5 percent Fage (Greek) yogurt

Pinch salt

Preparation

■ Puree all ingredients together. Pour into ice pop molds and freeze for at least four hours.

■ Run pop molds under warm water if necessary to unmold. Serve.

Healthy parfait

Ingredients

2 bananas, peeled and sliced

2 kiwis

1 pint strawberries

1 pint blueberries

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

½ cup strawberry puree

2 (8-ounce) containers nonfat vanilla yogurt

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 small vanilla angel food cake

10 sprigs fresh mint

1 recipe of homemade granola

Preparation

■ Place all the berries (cut strawberries into pieces if they’re too large) in a large bowl and sprinkle with the sugar. Stir to combine and set aside for about 30 minutes.

■ Peel kiwis and cut them into medium size dice. In a small bowl combine all the fruit together, refrigerate until ready to use.

■ In a separate bowl blend together yogurt with honey. Cut angel cake into medium-size dice.

■ In a mixer, beat the heavy whipping cream, confectioners’ sugar and vanilla extract just until soft peaks form.

■ Take ten wine or parfait glasses and put a small layer of cake, top with about 2 tablespoons of fresh fruit, then sprinkle granola on top.

■ Spread 2 tablespoons yogurt in each glass and top with some strawberry puree. Place a dollop of whipped cream on top. Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

The parfaits can be made several hours before serving. Cover and store in the refrigerator. Serves 10.

Homemade granola

Ingredients

1 container oatmeal

1 cup molasses

1 cup maple syrup

1 cup honey

½ cup light brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup hazelnuts roughly chopped

1 cup sliced almonds

1 cup pecans

1 cup raisins or dried cranberries

Preparation

■ In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together except raisins.

■ Spread over a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Bake at 325 F until crisp and dry.

Cool and break into pieces. Add raisins.