Christmas dinner for 200 may sound like a tall order – but Carlos Andrade's culinary class at Cobourg Collegiate Institute has the expertise, and the Salvation Army has the outreach.
The result was the annual Salvation Army Christmas dinner at St. Peter's Anglican Church on Tuesday which, in recent years, has been cooked and served by students.
“It's an opportunity to invite everybody and make the community closer,” Salvation Army Community and Family Services Director Edward Nkyi said, observing the roomful of contented diners tucking into turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and carrots, coleslaw and cranberry sauce (making sure to leave room for the apple-crumble pie for dessert).
The event also brings together a wonderful team of volunteers who work hard to make it happen. This year, that group included some staffers at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce who did carving duties on nine or 10 turkeys to produce a 150-lb. inventory of light and dark meat to dish out. They were rewarded with carry-out containers of the feast for their lunch.
The students were rewarded with credit for some of their community-service hours and an invaluable chance to experience the culinary world first-hand. In addition to preparing a delectable meal that was truly enjoyed by all, they did all the secondary jobs that catering entails – keeping the chafing dishes supplied with hot food, travelling around the tables to clear empty dishes, cleaning up in the kitchen and filling up the carry-out containers as needed.
Nkyi said they put out 172 chairs. But with people coming in late, feeding the students and volunteers, and preparing carry-out orders, he thinks it would be fair to say about 200 meals were served.
In the end, it may have been even more, as students offered to use the left-over food to fill up carry-out containers for anyone to take home with them.