Senior project May 15

 Weekly Reflection Sunday May 15 

Lucy Short 

Senior Project Week #1 Reflection 

This week working with Spectrum Youth and Family Services went really well! We started with prep for the week on Sunday and cooked meals Monday through Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, we had meals donated, so we did not have to cook. Throughout the week, we have learned a lot about Spectrum Youth and Family Services, who they provide services to, and what those services are. We have also learned a lot about cooking for large groups of people, which I have never done before. We learned what comes along with that and how difficult it can be to buy ingredients and adjust recipes to make large quantities. With random donations on those days, we learned how to deal with food waste and how to reuse certain ingredients in other recipes. This week we cooked all vegan meals because we were under the impression that a lot of the youth were vegan. But once we got there we became aware that many of them were not, so we will start cooking with meat and dairy this week. Everything went well and it was really fun to get to know some of the youth and staff this week. The only unexpected obstacle was the food donations and a surplus of food that would not last through the weekend. The skills we learned in prepping, cleaning, and cooking in large quantities will be very helpful for the future. We also did a lot of good research on the use of Narcan in youth and how to spread awareness about it. As far as reaching our goals, we have raised a substantial amount of money for groceries, which is also good practice for cooking on a budget. And we are definitely getting better, and quicker at making meals for large groups.