HCC Culinary Arts Students Prepare Meals to Support Community Compassion Project

HOLYOKE — Today, Nov. 25, at 3 p.m., community volunteers will visit the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute to pick up 150 cooked turkeys, along with assorted sides (mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes) prepared by Holyoke Community College culinary arts students to help feed hungry people this holiday season.

Their efforts are on behalf of the Compassion Project, founded by Areliz Barbosa, to deliver meals to hungry people on Thanksgiving. This marks the 23rd year of Barbosa’s initiative.

Last year, the HCC culinary arts crew helped the Compassion Project give out 1,000 hot meals for Thanksgiving. This year, Chef Tracy Carter, chair of the HCC culinary arts program, integrated the cooking of turkeys and Thanksgiving sides into the culinary arts curriculum to help meet the agency’s goal of delivering 2,000 hot meals.

Carter said the students and staff have been in production in the culinary arts institute kitchen all day today, getting the food ready for the 3 p.m. pickup. The HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute is located at 164 Race St., in Holyoke.

The food will be taken to Gran Cocina on High Street in Holyoke, where hot meals will be available for pickup or sit down on Thanksgiving Day.

HCC culinary arts students also prepared grab-and-go bag lunches for people participating in the 16th annual March for the Food Bank, as marchers, led by radio host and march leader Monte Belmonte, passed the Culinary Arts Institute on Monday on the Holyoke leg of their two-day, 43-mile trek from Springfield to Greenfield.