From the 3D model to the actual event the elected Hispanic foods class vicariously experienced the Hispanic culture on Wednesday, May 8. Hispanic Foods students spent the whole morning preparing food and setting up their tables for The Food Truck Festival. The entrepreneur team had the opportunity to compete against each other to be the champions. The teams prepared for over eight weeks ago.
Mrs. Donahue said that the Food Truck Festival has been growing for three years. Hispanic Foods was a new class that was taught by Mrs. Donahue and Mrs. Smith, they wanted to find an end-of-the-school-year project that was fun and combined all of the skills that were taught, so they came up with The Food Truck Festival. Mrs. Donahue said, “The purpose of the food truck project is to have a collaborative project that involves everything that the students have learned over the school year.”
Teams spent months perfecting their ideas: a name, a menu, prices to price their items, building a tri-fold board, making shirts, and assembling a 3D model of a food truck. Teams each are handed tasks to do for instance finding a name for their food truck and printing the name and a logo of their choice for their shirts or picking out food items to sell and creating a menu for the tri-fold board.
With a total of 12 tables, each group got to choose the country they wanted to represent. They had to research the country and learn about each country’s culture and the foods they eat. Then they had to make a poster board with the information they researched and stand it up at their stand for customers to see.
Mrs. Donahue enjoys the project a lot. She loves it when the students come together to work and make the vision come to life. “My favorite part about the project is the day of, everyone seems to have so much fun with it even though it is stressful and chaotic it always turns out to be so much fun seeing the student body come together and enjoy the food the students create,” said Mrs. Donahue.
The group that earned the biggest profit margin from selling their items won a free lunch of their choice provided by Mrs. Donahue. This teaches students about pricing their items at the right cost and being able to portion them out properly to match.
Peru Pals with the team members of Sage Uschock, Penelope Wetzel, Mikena Marino, Gianna Skoloda, Noah Heitchue, and Cole Brunton won. They were serving chocolate cake, rice, and pina colada. The winners chose to get food from Chick-fil-A.
The importance of the project is learning strategies to make a profit when you are selling Uschock says, “The key to selling your product is being friendly and welcoming, but it is also important to advertise.” Sage noted that Mikena passed out flyers that had their menu on them, which helped to advertise their items.
Hispanic Food students enjoyed the project, Sage said, “My favorite part was folding the napkins to look cute and setting up the table and the decorations.” Many enjoy the competition and advertising of the food. This project-based learning is a hands-on class, where students have a lot of freedom to pick and choose the recipes, while still learning basic cooking skills that will help them outside of class.
Teams had a lot of freedom from choosing the name to designing the menus and what was served on them. They were handed a packet at the beginning of the project that stated the tasks and requirements for the project, but the teams got to design, cook, and sell all by themselves. This taught the entrepreneurs the importance of pricing their money well, how to assess any problems that occur, and how to work as a team.
Throughout the school year, students got to choose their partners, but during the Food Truck project, different groups were combined. Sage said, “This was my first time working with different classmates that I do not usually talk to.” Getting out there are cooperating with different groups of people helps to get students out of their comfort zones and talk to different people. Expanding your comfort zones is important especially when it comes to a group project.
Hispanic Foods Students enjoyed the project but especially loved the day of the Food Truck Festival. Strutting in their matching shirts, the teams fought for the title of the best food truck. Showing off their cooking skills with tasty and delicious foods from all over like Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico the entrepreneur teams put their hard work into making the day special.
