Are You Really Sure Starbucks Got Started Just Like This?
My students need a rolling food cart, donuts pans, and a large coffee urn to be able to prepare and service early morning breakfast items to our staff and teachers.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
My big challenge is to make my culinary arts training as real as it can be to provide each student with some real world food service work experiences. I see a need to develop an early morning entrepreneur class project. We will prepare, deliver, and sell things to the staff three mornings a week.
I am at a 200-student high school as a culinary arts chef instructor for my large school district.
I teach Introduction to Culinary Arts I and II (basic to advanced culinary arts skills.) These students are in 9th to 12th grade and most of them are classified as disadvantaged students receiving free or reduced-price lunch in a Title I school that is about 90% African-American. These students need a lot of hands-on training to build skills for future employment or a culinary college. My curriculum covers a range of food service topics, but we do a lot of food production. My school has a 90% graduation rate with a very large number of them going to college or a technical training.
We are a JROTC high school and operate on semesters with various schedules depending on tests, speakers, parades, and test training classes. I have my students on a regular schedule of 90 minutes to provide as much training as I can. For our special events, I have less time, and make use of every moment.
My Project
Who does not enjoy the aroma of fresh coffee and pastries in the early morning?
The staff members will have a smile on their faces when we approach with our Welcome Wagon cart rolling up to the rooms with freshly made coffee and some pastries. Last year we just had the coffee set up in the mail room, and it went well until with the heavy use they broke the pour valve on our coffee urn.
Our new concept is to brew the coffee, make donuts or other pastries and at designated locations sell them to the teachers and staff. We need the cart for transportation, donuts pans, and a coffee urn to accomplish training. With the sales three days a week, we will replace the sold items, and save the extra dues for our students to be members in a national student organization called Family, Careers, and Community Leaders of America. I have added a roasting pan for teaching them how to bake hams when I want to do a rolling breakfast. They will prepare pastries, build customer skills, and learn sale techniques.
A lot of our students only know to think about "what is in it for me".
They also expect that all foods and beverages produced are just for them. This entrepreneurial experience will help them develop a service concept, expand knowledge of how to greet customers, sell to them, be a breakfast cook, cashier, and server. They will develop a service concept as they make pasties, coffee, and use the welcome wagon for sales. The funds gained from the sales will be used for supplies and their national club dues.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Crompton and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.