Holiday leftovers can be a problem, and not just for the big ticket items like turkey. A pair of Collin College professors have figured out how to turn foods like leftover cranberries into the sweet taste of Service Learning.
Allen Outreach Center Food Bank clients got a little something extra this Thanksgiving in the form of a 56-page holiday cookbook of tried-and-true recipes anyone can make with easily available pantry items. That is, the recipes are made with items commonly donated to the food bank and “surplus items” which are donated in big numbers, especially around the holidays.
Chef Jill McCord said that a summer seminar at the Heard Museum got her interested in incorporating Service Learning into her class. A chance meeting with the ACO’s Julie Macpherson at the seminar got the ball rolling on the cookbook idea.
Originally, McCord’s pastry class was asked to find recipes for the excess amount of green beans, pumpkins and cranberries that the ACO receives. But after a trip to the ACO, the class thought something more substantial might be better.
“We got to see the clients and we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if they had options which were nicer than just opening a can or a bag, if they had some recipes that were more specific to the things they were getting?’” McCord said.
The book’s recipes were designed by the students, based on existing recipes but in some cases tweaked to make sure they worked with commonly available items. Students worked in the class to test all of the recipes, making sure they were all user-friendly. McCord made sure to tie the cookbook project to learning objectives and encouraged her students to get involved wherever possible.
Distributing the recipes once they were designed became the next challenge, and associate professor Abby Christian’s Special Events Design class took up the cause from there.
“We were fortunate to have a student in both classes who could help facilitate the transition of the project from Jill’s class to mine,” Christian said.
The hospitality class participated in a farmers market at the Plano Campus, partnering with more pastry classes to sell baked goods, and raffled off three sets of Dallas Stars tickets to help raise money for the cookbook printing.
Christian said the project seemed like a good fit for her class if you look at fundraising efforts from an event-planning perspective. Students determined event objectives and budget requirements in addition to organizing and executing a special event.
Both educators seem excited about incorporating Service Learning into their classes and are eager to do similar projects in the future. McCord has reached out to other food pantries in the area to discuss the possibility, and other professors have hinted their interest in getting their classes involved. During a discussion at the annual gingerbread house workshop, Dr. Lauryn Angel said she is open to the possibility of one of her technical writing classes participating. Both she and McCord thought that bringing in a graphic arts class to help with design would be another great opportunity for students to get involved.
“It would be kind of amazing because it is a great program for people to be involved with,” Angel said.
Starting a new Service Learning project can be daunting, and not only for students. McCord said that before going to the summer workshop, she would not have believed how simple it was to bring Service Learning into her classroom.
“In talking to some of the instructors in the gingerbread workshop, a lot of them say they want to, but they just really aren’t sure how to,” she said. “It is much easier to tie Service Learning into a class than I expected it to be.”