GAINESVILLE – About a dozen Hall County high school students are going to be very busy this week as they take the skills they learn in the classroom (in this case their classroom is a kitchen) and offer an international welcome to the athletes competing in the World Dragon Boat Championship being held on Lake Lanier.
Culinary arts students attending Lanier College and Career Academy are making daily trips between their Oakwood campus and Lake Lanier Olympic Park on Clarks Bridge Road, providing meals for the visiting athletes from twelve foreign countries and the United States.
Kevin Bales, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, said at Monday evening’s school board work session, “LCCA has been heavily involved with providing meals.”
Hall County School Superintendent Will Schofield said, “I think (it’s) $36,000 worth of meals for participants and volunteers. It will be several thousand meals.”
“They served their first (meal) yesterday to a couple of hundred athletes and they were raving about the quality of it,“ Schofield said. “What an opportunity for our kids to rub shoulders with individuals from (12) countries from around the world and provide some world class service.”
The races don’t officially start until September 13th but the LCCA students are working now to feed the visitors during their practice and set-up days.
Food preparation takes place in the commercial kitchen/classroom at LCCA according to Bales. “It’s getting driven over each day to the event, but the work is taking place at the Oaks every day.”
The Oaks is the collective name for the five student-operated businesses on the Tumbling Creek Road campus of LCCA.
Bales said the funding for the meal program came from a private source whose only stipulation was that LCCA students be the ones to provide the service.
Bales said that one team not listed among those attending the competition that might still arrive in time to compete. “There’s a lot of conversation about North and South Korea possibly fielding a joint team together at the Venue.”
Bales said the culinary program offered at LCCA has a special place in his heart. “I will tell you from a personal experience I’m a father of kid that went through our culinary programs here that’s now a freshman at the University of Georgia in the nutritional sciences and wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for the culinary experiences she had…at Lanier College and Career Academy.”
“It’s definitely something we hang out hats on here in Hall County and think that we do it as well as anybody across the state,” Bales said proudly.
