Three Schools Combine for Many Meals

This week the Campus Kitchen used the help of three schools, George Washington University, Vanderbilt University, and Gonzaga College High School, to produce double meals.

In addition to the usual Monday and Tuesday shifts, the Campus Kitchen welcomed volunteers from George Washington's HMSR 152 class for a special Saturday cooking shift. Alongside their professor, Honey Nashman, the group made bread pudding and helped assemble meals for our Tuesday delivery shift.

Two days later, seven students from Vanderbilt University volunteered their time at the Monday cooking shift as part of an Alternative Spring Break trip. The group helped to make another 55 meals for our clients.

For the entrées in these meals, the Vanderbilt group made taco salads for our child-friendly location and chicken Caesar salads for the elderly locations. The lettuce we used was purchased, but everything else in the salads was donated from two local law firms.

The students even helped to make home-made croutons out of donated bread. We used this recipe, which was quick and easy, to prepare them.

Vandy Volunteers Showing Off Croutons
Finally, the many meals were ready for delivery on Tuesday. With the help of students from the Social Justice class at Gonzaga College High School, we delivered the meals to the client agencies around the school’s campus.

With three schools colluding for the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School, we were able to produce more meals and involve more groups!

Saturday Shifts

One important part of running a Campus Kitchen is getting groups outside the school to help participate in the project. After all, the Campus Kitchen is intended to serve the community. At Gonzaga, one of the best ways to accomplish this is to have Saturday shifts with youths as volunteers.

This past Saturday, we had a group from Holy Trinity in Georgetown come to our campus and help with the meal preparation. Since the group was comprised of eighth-graders, the weekend is the only time they can come in to help.

The easiest way to get the kids interested in the experience is to have them prepare the desserts! On Saturday, we made raspberry swirl cake and bread pudding with raisins. The raspberry swirl cake is easy to make and something we've done a lot. This was the first time we've made bread pudding, though. We get a ton of bread and use it only for sandwhiches. By making pudding we can make of a lot more of the bread.

The end results!
After is was all said and done, the group seemed to really enjoy the experience. They're signed up for a delivery shift in December, so next time they'll be able to see where the food goes!