Senior Project - Louisa L

  Sunday, May 22 Today we decided to make a big cake to bring in on our last day </3 Lucy and I headed to Shaws to get all our ingredients. We decided to make a vanilla cake with strawberries. We made the cake ahead of time to frost and decorate tomorrow!! Monday, May 23 Today has been so bittersweet. We completed our senior project, which means we are one step closer to graduating; on the other hand, we had to say goodbye to our new friends. Lucy and I set up a taco bar with all the toppings for everyone to make their own taco. We prepped all of our toppings and cooked the meat, then frosted and decorated the cake.  We headed to Spectrum at 3:30 to set everything up, and heat up the meat and rice before anyone got there. Today was different from all the others because we set up dinner buffet style, which was a hit. When we were done serving dinner, we took a while to sit down and talk with everyone. Our new friend, Mo taught us how to make the perfect burrito! Everyone lov...

It’s insane that we are nearing the end of Senior Project! I am sad to be leaving Spectrum but know without a doubt that I’ll be back. Spectrum’s Drop-In Center is a safe and welcoming place for young people (14-24) “ to eat a meal, use a computer or phone, do laundry, get clothing, take a shower, and get other basic needs met”. They have the resources to provide supportive housing, mental health/ substance abuse counseling, and mentoring. They also have the resources to educate the community in a variety of ways. Last Tuesday, we met with a woman named Jess from the Howard Center. The Howard Center provides support and services to address mental health, substance use, and developmental needs. They provide Narcan to the Burlington community, which can otherwise be very expensive. We were trained to administer Narcan ( which reverses an overdose), and what overdose signs to look out for. I’m beyond grateful that Spectrum provided us with this opportunity. I live in a place where opioid ...

 May 20, 2022 Lucy and I have been super conscious of our food waste during this project. We have found it is more sustainable to do our shopping day by day. This morning, we headed to Shaws to pick up creamy tomato pasta and garlic bread ingredients. We got everything we needed and proceeded to clean the kitchen when we got home. We made the creamy tomato pasta with onions, tomato, basil, parm, and cream. Our garlic bread had the perfect butter/ garlic ratio and was delicious. When everything was finished, Lucy and I headed to Spectrum to hand out our meal and chat with our friends. Today was a quiet day because it was so lovely out; when the weather is nicer people tend to stay outside. I have a pretty significant ACL injury, and today one of our new friends walked me through the process of surgery. I walked away from the conversation with a weight lifted from my chest. Every day I am learning so much from our mentors, but more from the youth that use the drop-in center. The cent...

May 19, 2022 Today there was a massive rainstorm in Burlington today. This morning when we woke up, Lucy and I realized that we needed to go shopping for missing ingredients. We decided last minute to make crazy brownies with cookies, brownies, and Oreos. We had tempeh from last week, which is a soybean meat alternative. It was my first time ever cooking with it, and at first, the consistency looked quite unappealing. We made a vegan chili mac and cheese and the tempeh tasted amazing when it was mixed in! The key to tempeh is a lot of spices and sauce! Lucy made a black bean and chickpea stew, and we had leftover arugula for a separate salad. When we got to Spectrum, we played a big game with everyone where we put tape with a word on our foreheads and had to guess what the word was. We had a great time, every second of the game was hilarious! There was a police standoff outside of the restaurant next to Spectrum, which was definitely a spectacle during dinner. Lucy and I both have so m...

 Wednesday, May 18 This morning we woke up and started our food prep, which consisted of lots of veggie cutting - broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, celery, and bell peppers! Our meal today was veggie stirfry, which we sort of winged. We made this meal last week, but today we added chicken to mix it up. It tasted really good, and the youth enjoyed it a lot. Our brownies were a huge hit, and when we were at Spectrum we ended up serving sundaes with all the toppings!! The brownie crumbles went perfectly with ice cream. Brigit is our supervisor at Spectrum, but yesterday she was not there. We took over yesterday, which was a big deal. Everything went really well and we had some really wonderful conversations with the youth <3.  The opioid epidemic is a serious national crisis that affects public health/ economic health. Opioid overdoses are fatal, and sadly very common. Narcan can quickly reverse an overdose if administered correctly. We met with Jess from Safe Recovery to be ...

This morning we made our first non-vegan meal! We cooked chicken enchiladas with a homemade sauce, which we served with an arugula salad, bean/ corn salad, and brownies. Lucy and I do not usually cook much meat, but I think our chicken came out really delicious! It was a hit at Spectrum, and everyone was a big fan of having chicken! We will stick to cooking meat because it turns out that everyone there eats it.                                                                                            Today was a pretty intense day when we were at Spectrum. It led us to have a critical conversation about what kind of services they offer to youth. Because Spectrum is completely donation-based, they have lee-way to run their organization how they want. This means ...

We did not cook again today due to the massive amounts of food donations at Spectrum. Tomorrow we are finally incorporating meat into our meals, starting off with chicken enchiladas. We headed to Spectrum to pick up our serving dishes and learned how to the sanitation dishwasher, which was cool. We headed to Shaws to get the needed ingredients for enchiladas. We planned ahead and cooked brownies from scratch, and made a black bean salad for tomorrow. We are excited to incorporate meat into our meals and think that the crew at Spectrum will be psyched too. Tomorrow is a big day, we will probably end up getting the rest of the shopping done for the rest of the week. We have put together a completely different menu for this week, and are excited to see our new friends tomorrow!!  Brownies for tomorrow <3 Hours : 4.5  

Woooowww… week one is finished!! The past week has gone by so fast. Every day I feel like I learn something new, and our friends at Spectrum have taught us so much along the way. We are so lucky to be working beside such an amazing crew, who have made us feel so comfortable in this new space. Lucy and I are a lot more comfortable in the kitchen than we were at the start of the week. It took us a few days to get the hang of cooking for so many people, but now we have a set system in place. The prep work takes the longest time, so we start our day mornings off with that. We have found splitting the recipe and each prepping and cooking separately works wonders; this helps us cook large quantities in a shorter amount of time. The two of us love cooking and are big fans of our setup. I believe that we will stick with our routine for next week. We were told to cook vegan meals for 30 people, but have found that everyone eats meat. We have found that everyone prefers having some kind of meat ...

 Lucy and I are not cooking for Spectrum again today because they have lots of food donations. We do not want to create excess food waste, so we are taking this time to look at Narcan education. Spectrum Youth provides substance abuse counseling for their community, and we are looking to learn more about educating our community on the importance of Narcan. I grew up in a place where opiate overdoses are sadly common, and already know a lot about how to use Narcan. We realized that many others may have no clue what Narcan even is. Narcan is a nasal spray used for emergency treatment of known/ suspected opioid overdose. This drug works by blocking the effects of the opioid in the brain, stopping the overdose. We are coming up with ideas to bring awareness to the Proctor community. We are looking into what safe recovery is and how to share this information with the community as well.  Serious opioid overdose symptoms: unusual sleepiness, unusual difficulty waking up, breathing pr...

May 12  This morning we woke up with a major fridge issue!! We spent the morning moving food and fixing the fridge so we could save everything. We do not have to cook today because Spectrum got a massive BBQ donation yesterday. We split all the perishable food up and brought all of the food scraps to the compost. We created a shopping list and looked at all of the ingredients we already had. Lucy and I found some new recipes and have decided to incorporate dairy and meat into our meals. The majority of people at Spectrum eat meat, so we need to plan some different recipes with meat.  Check out our first recipe of the week :  10-Ingredient Lentil Bolognese <3  - a really good vegan alternative!  https://rainbowplantlife.com/10-ingredient-vegan-red-lentil-bolognese/      Time spent today- 4 hours  Total Project time- 31 ½ hours 

 May 11 Shelburne was HOT this morning when we woke up!! We started off our morning at 8 am with a cup of coffee in the sun. We quickly got into prep work for Morrocan chickpea stew with sweet potatoes/ a big garden salad.  Lucy and I cook for 30 people. We have found splitting the recipe in half, and cooking the meals separately is the most efficient way to get everything done. I am feeling really comfortable in the kitchen, and I think my knife skills are getting much better. Lucy and I brainstorm new meals every day and are thinking ahead to next week. We were cooking from 9:00 AM to 1:00 and took an hour break to clean after. After, we made ourselves lunch and then headed to Spectrum. We got there at around 3:50 and started to distribute meals and catch up with the youth.  Spectrum got a big food donation today, so we packaged and stored everything. We then reheated meals, served dinner, and cleaned the kitchen up. We had time to just hang out with the youth and get t...

 We are really getting the hang of everything and it's only day 2 of cooking!! The meal today was stirfry with tofu and a bigggg salad. Lucy finessed and got 6 lbs of fresh greens from a local farm nearby. The stirfry was full of veggies, and we made a massive pot of rice for the side. The prep work took all morning/ afternoon, but we have a system down which makes everything easier. The stirfry was quite delicious if I say so myself :) When everything was done, we headed over to Spectrum and served our meals, and boxed all the leftovers for later. I made a new friend with a kid that lives at Spectrum, named Connor. He taught me a few chords on the ukulele and we painted. The more time we spend there, the more comfortable the kids get with us. We are doing our prep work ahead of time tonight, and can't wait to see our new friends tomorrow !! <3    

Today we got our day started off with coffee and breakfast, then quickly hopped into our prep work. We are cooking all-vegan meals ( per request) and decided to start the week with a red lentil bolognese. We are cooking for around 30 people, so the prep work took a few hours. We spent a long time in the kitchen and finished everything up with a few hours to spare before heading over to Spectrum. We finally got to meet Brigit, and see the facility in person. We got to know the space, then started handing out our meal with a salad on the side. Spectrum was quiet yesterday, but it felt great to get to meet the staff and youth there. We are excited to make a stirfry tomorrow!!       hours: 5.5

 We got to Vermont yesterday afternoon after saying goodbye to our friends at Proctor. We settled into our new home for the next few weeks and made dinner. We woke up this morning, ready to plan the upcoming weeks. We spent a long time brainstorming upcoming meals, vegan protein options, and the cost of shopping. When we had five meals planned for the week, we created a lengthy shopping list. We hit Costco to get the majority of bulk ingredients, then Shaws for everything else. After a long afternoon of shopping, we called it a day and came back home to unload everything. We cannot wait to head to Spectrum Youth tomorrow with a warm, vegan meal!!  Total hours: 5