For Bonnie Potter, the house manager at Shelters of Saratoga, this scenario is an everyday reality.
So when Chef Maureen Clancy, instructor of the WSWHE BOCES culinary arts program, heard that Potter needed some help creating new meals, Clancy immediately decided that helping feed the houseguests of Shelters of Saratoga (SOS) would be her culinary arts students’ community service project for the year.
“We have the resources, the equipment, the manpower and the bodies to help out and do this work, so we decided to take on SOS as our big year-long project,” Clancy said. “That house has an average household kitchen, but [Bonnie] has to feed over 30 people every day—it’s like a catering nightmare. She doesn’t have the refrigerator or the freezer space, but she’s doing great. I don’t know how she does it.”
Since Clancy and Potter’s collaboration began about a month ago, the chef and her students have turned six cases (about 50 pounds) of canned corn into a variety of corn-based meals, including corn chowder, corn bread and corn muffins. Several pounds of turkey were turned into turkey chili, turkey patties, turkey pot pies and soup. The students even took donated chicken meat and cooked up chicken cacciatore, a meal that the houseguests had never eaten in the shelter before.
“Maureen helps me through when I’m panicking about coming up with new menu ideas,” Potter said. “I tell her the excess stuff I have here—for example, I told her we had a lot of beans, so they made vegetarian chili. I didn’t think people were going to eat it with all the beans, but they loved it. They loved every minute of it.”
Potter said that the meals help SOS maintain a homey, comfortable atmosphere for its houseguests.
“Everybody gets together and they’ll warm up the food or make a salad to go with it,” Potter said. “It makes it very homey and they sit around the table knowing where [the food] came from, and we always talk about the kids that are cooking the meals, and it makes them very bright and cheery.”
Chef Clancy said that cooking for SOS has given her students a new sense of purpose in her program.
“The students are loving it. They feel good because they are doing something good,” Clancy said. “And we’re getting great feedback. People are saying they loved this or that, or they’ll ask ‘Can you make that chili again?’ [The houseguests] especially thanked us for the cinnamon buns we made them for breakfast—that was a huge treat for them.”
Potter added that the home-cooked meals have made a positive impact on the houseguests of SOS.
“They really have something to look forward to now,” Potter said. “They are out during the day, so they come home to this nice meal and know where it came from. Even though they haven’t met the students, there’s still a connection there.”
To help out SOS even more, Clancy’s students organized a schoolwide canned food drive, which garnered over 1,000 cans of food. They are also now working with the school’s Future Farmers of America and SkillsUSA clubs to continue canned food drives throughout the month of December. Students are also collecting winter clothes, business suits and dresses for houseguests who are looking for jobs.
“The kids are into it,” Clancy said. “They’re motivated and they’re learning a good lesson to give back to the community. It’s not only to help out this time of year, but to raise awareness of how many people in our community really need this.”
Clancy also said that cooking for SOS has helped her students realize that there are many residents of Saratoga who are in need of help.
“When Bonnie came in and talked to the group for about an hour and told them stories and testimonies from other people, the tears were coming down in the kids’ eyes thinking that this is happening in our own backyard,” Clancy said. “You can go up and drive all around Saratoga and see these great, huge beautiful mansions—but I’ll tell you what, three blocks in the opposite direction there are people standing in line looking for food, and I think that’s a big reality check.”
For those who are thinking of donating food to the shelter this holiday season, Potter explained that though canned goods are always helpful, donating meats to the shelter is also appreciated due to the expensiveness of meat.
“Our biggest expense is meat,” Potter said. “Right now we have a lot of people doing drives, which we appreciate very much, but our biggest expense is meat so if you’re out shopping and want to donate and see a ‘buy one turkey, get one free’ type of deal, pick one up. We’re open 24/7 so anybody can drop things off anytime.”
As far as the outlook of the SOS and BOCES culinary arts collaboration goes, Clancy is optimistic that their working relationship will continue for the foreseeable future.
“I’m proud of my kids,” Clancy said. “They do a good job and I hope we can continue to do this, because it’s definitely worth the cause.”
For more information on BOCES programs, visit the website at www.wswheboces.org. To learn more about Shelters of Saratoga, visit the website at www.sheltersofsaratoga.com. For those interested in dropping off food, the main SOS shelter is located at 14 Walworth Street in Saratoga Springs.
