Rose Morisette, a Grade 12 food studies student at Avery Outreach School, takes some cooked turkey out of the oven for a pre-Easter feast for the entire school. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Students, teachers and staff at Avery Outreach School got an early taste of Easter with a year-end barbecue to look forward to.
Some food studies students cooked a turkey meal with all the fixings in Avery’s kitchen last Wednesday.
“They are making an Easter meal for the rest of the staff and the students in the school. We have about eight students helping,” explained food studies teacher Melissa Brown.
“It’s amazing for them because some of our students don’t get Easter meals, so, this is why we do this for them; they get to have the turkey and ham.”
They also get to take leftovers home.
Brown says they do this for Christmas and Easter, with a barbecue at the end of the school term.
“We at Avery are a huge family and we love to bring everybody together all the time,” she said.
The Easter meal included turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and some desserts.
Brown said staff popped the turkey and the ham into the oven earlier in the day because of the cooking time needed, but it was students who cooked and mashed the potatoes and made all the stuffing.
“When everyone’s done eating they will stay back and completely clean everything up,” she said.
Rose Morisette, a Grade 12 food studies student, rolled up her sleeves to make potatoes and juice and talked about what it means to her to pitch in.
“It makes me feel good because it brings all of us together,” she said.
The way it works, is students from each class come into the kitchen to load up their paper plates with food to be eaten in their classrooms.
Morisette says she enjoys cooking and planned to do some more at home over the Easter weekend.
“I love baking banana bread,” she said.
Another student Justin Vincent joked he had a preventative role “probably not to burn anything”while preparing the school community meal.
“The most fun is the laughs and helping people with troubles in cooking. We have some experienced people in here and some people we don’t as much,” he said speaking about abilities.
The teen says it actually feels “pretty good” to make a school meal.
“I know from experience our food is pretty good. There’s some people here that don’t have families and live on their own.”
“He added, “It’s quite nice here. It’s like one big family.”
Carving the turkey was teacher Cory Gratton who offered his thoughts on what the meal means at Avery.
“It’s a nice way to bring the school together. It makes students feel more connected to the school,” said Gratton.
