By Joanne Rodgers, Bruce Peninsula Press
A BPDS Senior Kindergarten student, and possible future food critic, says the best thing about the Festive Feast was the taste.
Over 300 Bruce Peninsula District School (BPDS) students, teachers and volunteers enjoyed BPDS’ Annual Festive Feast on December 14, 2023. On the menu this year were turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, rolls, and cake.
The meal was sponsored 100% by the Lion’s Head Community Bottle Fund. Tim Hayes says he started donating to the Festive Feast in 2015; since 2018 the Community Bottle Fund has been fully paying for the food.
The purchases towards the meals are sourced locally as much as possible. This year with Hellyer’s Foodland being closed, the schools and daycare sourced their supplies from Peacocks Foodland. Both Principal Brewer and Hayes complimented Peacocks staff on their great and efficient service.
Community members, teachers and students all pitched in to make this Festive Feast a memorable one. Aptly led by the Grade 8 and High School Student Councils, student volunteers played an active role in decorating the auditorium, preparing, serving and cleaning up of the meal.
Mary Hewton from The Booth Takeout & Catering, with help from former BPDS teacher Dannah Oliver, cooked many of the turkeys.
The potatoes were peeled by Grade 7 and cooked by Grade 8. The secondary food class led by Ms Sweatman did much of the food preparation, along with the Developmental Learning class led by Ms Rice.
Kara Hellyer, Cecile Myles and former teacher Michelle Minke helped out during the day.
Two former BPDS students Tamieka Eby and Jordon Hurst, graduates of the dual credit culinary program at Georgian College, helped with carving the turkeys, making gravy and other food prep as needed.
All the students from Grade 7 and above took various jobs to ensure the seemingly slick operation of feeding over 300 persons.
The kindergarten classes and Grade 1 classes were served in their classrooms by student volunteers. There were two seatings in the auditorium, 220 elementary students were served first, followed by 80 high school students.
The meal received rave reviews from the students, with the consensus that the mashed potatoes were especially excellent this year.
St Edmunds Public School and Tobermory Daycare Enjoy Festive Feast
This year, the Lion’s Head Community Bottle Fund also provided all of the supplies through Peacock’s Foodland to St. Edmunds Public School and Tobermory Primary Place Daycare to allow them to arrange their own Festive Feast on December 14, 2023. The kids enjoyed the same menu as BPDS students: turkey with all the fixings.
Fourteen kids at St Edmunds participated in decorating the room for the meal including using festive tablecloths and creating the centerpieces. At the Daycare, 11 kids enjoyed the festive feast served in their classrooms. The cranberry sauce was a big hit with the daycare kids.
Both the Administrator at St Edmunds and the Supervisor at the Daycare reported that all the kids absolutely loved the festive event.
