Process Paper

Sitting there in a lecture about senior Trip, it hit me, I should raise money. Senior Trip is so expensive costing $416.00; most people can't just afford that. Now I just have to think of how. I realized my internship for 50 hours is cooking in big portions, and my mom was asking me to help out at the church dinners. That is how I came up with my senior project, Senior Trip Benefit Dinner. A three course dinner served to each person 15.00 a ticket I would raise so much money.

After I realized what I wanted to do for my senior project I had to write up my letter of intent. I was thinking this was going to be a pretty simple project you know my practice comes from my internship. I know which place I can do it at they have plates silverware, dishwasher, bowls, napkins, and coffee. I thought I was set. After I had finished my internship I was talking to my family about it. My grandma told me that if I wanted to use the church I have to have a 1,000,000.00 insurance policy. I also have to fill out an application to the church. So my mentor told me to contact my car insurance company or see if the church offered one. The church didn't offer one and you have to be eighteen years of age in order to rent the place. My dad and I called our car insurance company and they said that kind of policy costs $300.00. I felt a little more secure about my project.

After getting the insurance policy and marking my place in the churches calendar I still had to put in my proposal. My mom is an elder at the church so she would technically be the person putting it on because she is over eighteen years of age and already has the keys to the building. It was the night of my meeting for them to decided weather I should or shouldn't be able to use the facility. They don't let any kind of a fundraiser that isn't church related use the building, so I was very nervous. My mom walked into my work when I was closing the register and told me I got the place. I was so excited. She looked at me and said, “I have more great news, it's free”. She told me that one of the other elders said that she [my mom] does so much that it should be free. Now I have to get the word out.

I realized that before I can get the word out I need to make up a menu. I knew I was going to serve soup. My mentor and I had discussed in December whether we should serve soup or salad. We discussed there are so many problems with salad, no tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, then what kind of dressing, is it fat free. Then we discussed the different possibilities for the soup, it cant be cream based because if they are lactose and tolerant. We also have to be considerate of the vegetarian people. That leaves just one thing minestrone soup. Luckily working at Filippi's pizza grotto they have the best minestrone soup. So we used the Filippi's recipe for the soup. Now times come for the main dinner plate.

I wanted to do a chicken dish because more people are likely to like it rather then a beef. It is also really easy to dress up chicken. I was trying to think of good side dishes as well. Potatoes, pasta, and vegetables are the only things I could come up with. So I thought about what would be better for my price range. Pasta the noodles are inexpensive and it's easy to make in a bunch. I knew that I should have three things on the plate, for color, nutrition, and proportions. My favorite vegetable is green beans, so I really wanted to do those. My mentor told me that is the easiest vegetable to cook. So then my main dish was thought of I could have fettuccini alfredo, served with chicken piccata, and a side of green beans, for a vegetarian I could just have the fettuccini alfredo, with green beans.

I couldn't decide what to do for desserts. I knew that I wanted it to be really good. I started to talk to my peer Maria about the desserts. The teachers told her that she needed a big thing to do with cooking. Then I asked Maria if she wanted to make the desserts for the senior benefit dinner. She agreed to help me.

In class Maria helped me with the cut out of tickets. I designed the tickets within the first week of March put up flyers and was waiting to people to respond. Nobody did. I then talked to Betty Owen who is in charge or organizing, and getting parent volunteers she agreed to put information about it in the bulletin. It was a week before the event and I still didn't have enough tickets sold to make a profit. I gave ten tickets to a few students to have them try and sell them. That method worked a lot better for me.

One of the last things that I was worrying about was helpers, I had about four helpers to serve food so far. I talked to Mrs. Hamler about having the juniors serve for community service hours. She said that is a great idea and a great way to get that class involved in a senior project. I put out flyers and everybody contacted three days before, two days before, and the day of so that they can help.

We bought all of the groceries the day before. We started to prep all the food the night before as well. We were able to cut vegetables, and cook the noodles that night. Everything else had to wait till the next day. My family came and helped set up. My Father made signs to let people know where to go in the church. We figured out the system so we don't have to ask if somebody is a vegetarian. If they grabbed a white doily then they got a vegetarian plate. After all the servers came that day everything was set up and we were just waiting for the people.

The first course was soup we decided to have three different places where the server can go and grab bowls of soup. To many bowls of soup being pushed around would be messy. We ended up running out of soup, to many people came late that not everybody got some. But I guess that means it was really good.

The Second course we made a line in the kitchen one person doing the noodles for the fettuccini, putting chicken on the plates, putting the sauce on both the noodles and chicken, then lastly the person putting the green beans on the plate. Jordan checked each plate before it went out making sure it was presentable. We decided to make all the child plate before the adult so that children don't get to hungry.

The last course was the dessert this wasn't going to be served to people because there were to many different variety. Maria did a great job with all of them. Granted we still had to clean up after the last course.

The clean up wasn't very easy. Servers bussed all the tables and then we all did dishes for a long time. A few other seniors stayed behind and packed up all the chairs and tables to put the gym back to the way it was suppose to be. Then my family and close friends help the extra hour and a half putting food away and putting the kitchen back together. That was the end of my senior project we had gained a profit of $1180.51 It was very successful.