Culinary Sells Tea and Lemonade

For the past few weeks and at least up to spring break in April, students and staff have two more options for satisying their thirst. The Culinary classes have been selling sweet tea and lemonade for $1 per cup after the first three blocks of the day.

“It is a fun fundraiser, and who doesn’t like sweet tea and lemonade? The money is funding the Culinary Arts classes,” said Culinary teacher Jonnay Grooms.

Grooms has been teaching beverage-making skills with the students, getting them prepared to sell the sweet tea and lemonade. She has also gone out in the halls with the students to teach them customer service skills and show them how to make change and give out the drinks.

All three of her classes will be selling drinks on the 1st, 3rd and 4th floors in the school. Culinary 1 and 2 students are in charge of the beverage production and sales. Students have made waffles, cookies and various other sweets in the class, but this is the first time they have been selling their creations.

Grooms has also had the assistance of an apprenticeship student, senior Landon Martin, who has been a student in the Culinary Arts department for the last two years.

“Ms. Grooms and I have always had a good teacher-student relationship. I have really enjoyed this class and love having Ms. Grooms as my teacher,” said Martin. “I help in many different ways when it comes to selling sweet tea and lemonade. Sometimes I stand at the carts and sell the sweet tea and lemonade and other times I walk around to make sure everything is running smoothly and how Ms. Grooms would intend it to run. Everyday before each class we spend time making lemonade and sweet tea,” he added.

Grooms has been a Culinary teacher for several years and knows the in and outs of selling and making the supplies. “I would say the most difficult part of selling the lemonade and sweet tea are the sales. I was a little skeptical about it because I was worried that students would not purchase as much as we had thought, but so far it is going very well. The students are loving it and we have made a decent amount of sales. [My students] have done a great job at making all of this happen and I would not be able to do it without them,” she said.

Junior JaTayveon Lucas said that so far, being in Culinary has been a great experience. “Ms. Grooms is a great teacher and I have learned a lot from her in such a short time. It took me a while to understand how to make the drinks and sell them, but once I got the hang of it I realized how fun it was going to be,” he said.