Summer 2015 NACUFS Internship!: Michigan State Week Seven

Monday began with sitting in on a creative services meeting. The branding manager for each department on campus comes and they all discuss various projects to complete and keep a focus on where the team is going in terms of success and ability. At the time of the meeting there were 212 different marketing and communications projects in the works. The remainder of the day was spent working in a new venue on campus, Owen Hall. This dining facility features grab-and-go convenience items as well as hot grill items. This was a huge change of pace compared to working in halls where 1,000+ is being served in a lunch period. I enjoyed working with the staff and learning their ethics and work styles.

Tuesday began in McDonel Hall (sort of our home here). I spent the morning helping make the commissary salads and set-up for the weekly leadership meeting. Lunch was very fun for me because I got to make it! I was able to make a favorite from back home to share with the entire kitchen staff and pick a dessert to make...because no meal is complete without dessert. The day finished with speaking with Nate, the MSU food bank director. He gave a tour of the facility and explained how everything is run from when clients enter to when they exit. Nate was a wealth of knowledge and a very dedicated professional.

Wednesday Sonny and I met with Peggy Crum. She is more of a clinical dietitian on campus. She also has a few different campus community outreach programs she heads and she was able to share her passion for those programs. She coordinates a Health For You program that comes out each month and features a certain ingredient, this month it was blueberries. Peggy writes a short column about how to utilize the ingredients she is writing about and then Executive Chef Kurt will create a recipe. Each month this recipe is prepared through a demo for the campus community and Peggy is the spokesperson during these demos. After the demo Sonny and I helped to set-up for a different demo Chef Kurt led. This demo was for a youth camp on campus. He demonstrated deep fried raspberry sauce... He actually deep fried raspberry sauce and talked about the science behind making it possible with any sauce.

Thursday was dedicated to the recycling on campus. Carla is the RHS sustainability officer so she assures the RHS department is recycling as much as possible. She created a entire presentation about how essential recycling is and how to access any material needed to make the recycling programs stronger in any of the RHS related venues.