Photo courtesy of Cafe Dodici social media

Last week, Café Dodici was the site of a fundraiser for the Iowa Restaurant Association Education Foundation. The restaurant’s usual staff was working hard as ever, but had some extra assistance from Mid-Prairie culinary students.

The fundraiser aimed to raise money for the ProStart Program, which is a career-building program, reaching more than 150,000 students and 1,900 high schools nationwide. For the six Golden Hawks participating, this meant weeks of planning and modifying hors d’oeuvres recipes, cooking the food, and plating it for the guests.

Mid-Prairie junior, Shay Myers, who is taking Culinary 1 at the school, shared his thoughts with KCII about the opportunity in the weeks leading up. “We try to be pretty fast-paced in this class. I know it’s gonna be a great experience for whoever goes because you learn a lot from fast-paced people and a real job like that, but it’s definitely gonna be helpful for us in the future.” Joining Myers were fellow Golden Hawks Dominick Shively, Ella Titus, Anthony Culbertson, Cobin Thompson, and Emilie Burnett. 

The students worked closely with Tim Howard, who is the Executive Chef for Café Dodici. With a successful event in the books, the hope is for more student involvement in the future.