The Eastern New Mexico University Culinary Arts Program and the ENMU Educators Rising Student Chapter teamed up for a delicious way to give back to the Portales, New Mexico, community, sharing tasty cookie boxes and cards at every Portales Municipal Schools location.

Olivia Daniels, who is majoring in elementary and special education and serving as president of the ENMU Educators Rising Student Chapter, and Lisa Campbell, instructor of culinary arts, discuss how this collaboration came to be.

What inspired this sweet (literally) project?

Olivia Daniels: The inspiration for this project was to get a chance to give back to the community, specifically the teachers of Portales. After the last few years, we felt that they deserved a little bit of an extra "thank you" for all the hard work they have been doing.

I suggested we donate cookies and cards to them, and our advisor, Dr. Kathleen Wagner, suggested that we collaborate with the Culinary Arts Program to make the cookies, so I reached out to them to begin the process.

Working with the Culinary Arts Program was a wonderful time! Everyone was incredibly welcoming and patient with the members of our organization who went to help, and they were excellent at explaining exactly what we needed to do whenever we were confused or needed extra clarification.

I loved getting to meet new people and collaborate to form new connections here at ENMU!

Lisa Campbell: Every catering we do in our program is brought before the Catering and Events course. The students are Shayleigh Hernandez, Diana Orcutt, Aric Saiz and Eden Saldana. We were inspired when Oliva from EdRising approached us to prepare cookies for the educators in our community.

Once we worked out the details and EdRising donated the supplies, it was on. It was at that time the students in the Culinary Arts Program were tasked with preparing 14 dozen chocolate chip cookies, and both groups worked together on the sugar cookies. With suggestions from my students and from talking to Olivia, it was decided that her group would come and help with baking and decorating the sugar cookies.

It was an incredible experience, and it gave the culinary students and the EdRising students a chance to get to know about the different programs here at ENMU. Both the culinary and EdRising students were wonderful and so excited to be a part of this project. It also gave us time to reminisce about teachers from our past that also inspired us on our different journeys in life.

The project is what shows the best of our ENMU students and the impact their service is on the community.

What does taking part in this project mean to you?

Olivia Daniels: For me, this project was a great way to get to give back and say thanks to our local educators while also getting to meet new people from different departments that I likely would have never met otherwise.

Lisa Campbell: It gave us a way of showing what we do here in the Culinary Arts Program and what it takes to prep and bake 28 dozen cookies. The important takeaway is for students to be a part of the community that we live in and how our impact should be positive and show the community we care.

Are there plans for similar projects in the future or any upcoming projects from your group/program?

Olivia Daniels: Later this semester, Educators Rising is planning on doing a few things for Teacher Appreciation Week at the beginning of May, including making and giving out Candygrams to the teachers of Portales as well as the professors and teachers here at ENMU. We also plan on writing affirmations to give to the teachers at Portales High School.

Lisa Campbell: Our Culinary Arts Program is looking forward to many projects and catering events throughout the semester. We would do this again and hope this becomes a yearly event.