I love my job.
Have I told you that already? I might have. .. because I really love my job, and I tell anyone who will listen.
As with any job, some days are better than others, and some
days are simply the best.
The best days at Shepherds College? I have quite a few:
Preview Days – I love watching all
the nervous faces of our potential students walking in the door at 8am and watching all
the excited, hopeful faces walking out the door at 3pm.
CSA days – I buy a share in Turtle
Creek Gardens, the Community Supported Agriculture farm that works with our
Horticulture interns. On CSA delivery days, I
walk to the Horticulture classroom and pick up a box of fresh, organic produce
that our Horticulture students helped to grow, harvest and box up. I bring it home, lay it out on the counter and
exclaim, “Look what our students grew
this week!”
Days when I give tours – As the
Marketing Director, there are occasions when I have the opportunity to offer a
tour to photographers or journalists or news reporters. Some come to our campus
kind of blasé - they’re just doing their job – but leave the campus interested and invested
in the work of the college. Watching the transformation makes my day.
Any day a student visits my office
just to say hi or hugs me in the hallway.
Graduation week – the Baccalaureate,
the celebration, the ceremony – all occasions for happy tears, lots of prayers
and intense joy.
And, of course, the days Chef
McCarthy sends out an email inviting all the staff to the Culinary Arts kitchen
to sample the yumm-o creations made by his talented students. Here’s an example:
“Today from 11:15 to 11:45 you will have
another great opportunity to get something sweet from the CA program! We will
be making scones brimming with chocolate chips, toffee and pecans.
EVERYONE gets one free scone and you can take home a half dozen for only
$3! They warm or toast up nicely for a morning treat. Spread with
jam or butter and enjoy!”
Can you see why this would be a good day to be a Shepherds employee? I see “chocolate,”
“free scone,” and “only $3” all in the same paragraph!!
I know some of you are thinking, ‘Okay, I get the chocolate and the free pastry, but what’s so great
about paying $3 for food? I can do that at any drive-through.’
I love it because I know where my $3 is going. I know that
my money will help pay for the Culinary Arts students to go on important field
trips that will support their education in the food industry.
By asking for a donation for fresh scones, toffee pecan
cookies, chocolate lava cake, clam chowder, roasted turkey, pot roast, lobster
pizza, deep-fried catfish sandwiches and anything else made by the students,
Chef McCarthy is able to pay for each student to visit places like the
Wisconsin Restaurant Association Food Show, or the Gordon Food Service
Distribution Facility where the students watched the corporate chef's demonstration on beef and were given a behind the scenes tour of the distribution
facility to show how an order is picked, packed and shipped to the restaurant
after the order is placed.
Our donations have paid for the exciting trip to the Taste
of Home headquarters where the students cooked with the recipe
testers, tasted the recipes, and saw how the food stylists and photographers
prepared the recipes for publishing.
Chef McCarthy has also taken the students to visit the Olive
Oil shop in Lake Geneva and the Brewers Stadium Food Service Kitchens for a
behind the scenes tour.
These trips are opportunities for the students to observe
firsthand how the skills they are learning in the classroom are used in a
professional environment.
They enrich the students’ education with R.E.A.L. experiences.
They provide the opportunity for the students to interact in
community.
And they fill the students with dreams for a future that
could very well be theirs…
Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.
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