Culinary arts students prepare Thanksgiving dinner for homeless

Central Montco Tech High School › | Posted on Dec 3, 2018

The students prepped, cooked and packaged 150 pounds of turkey.

A yearly tradition at Central Montco Technical High School (CMTHS), students in the Culinary Arts, Baking and Restaurant Practices programs prepped, cooked and packaged Thanksgiving dinner for the Norristown Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center (CHOC). Participating school districts in the area include Colonial, Upper Merion, Lower Merion and Norristown. “It was fun making the food, because I know it was for a good cause,” said Plymouth Whitemarsh High School senior Richard Marinho. “It was challenging, because this is my first tech year, but the chefs helped me.”

During the Monday and Tuesday before the holiday, the students prepared and packaged:

150 pounds of cooked turkey (sliced and ready to reheat)
50 pounds of country-style mashed potatoes
50 pounds of orange brown sugar glazed sweet potatoes
60 pounds of maple glazed ham
75 pounds of traditional sage stuffing
6 gallons of turkey gravy

The food was donated to the organization and delivered to CMTHS the week before thanksgiving to allow the 12 frozen turkeys to thaw over the weekend in the school’s walk-in refrigerator. “It has been our pleasure here at CMTHS to serve our communities in any way we can,” said Chef John Everett who teaches at the school. Representatives from CHOC picked up all of the prepared food products Wednesday morning to be served the next day and reported back that there was plenty of food, even some leftovers, for the participants.