Cooking With Purpose

The Golden Isles College and Career Academy (GICCA) will be holding their annual Evening with the Stars culinary event on March 14 at Sea Island Resort. Elegant Island Living is proud to once again be a sponsor of this benefit for the Career Academy.

Students enrolled in the culinary program at GICCA will work alongside Sea Island’s professional chefs and staff to prepare a delicious dinner. The evening kicks off at 6:00 p.m. with a social hour with appetizers and drinks followed by a four-course menu featuring locally sourced ingredients that has been developed and executed by the students. Students will work in teams preparing the food, cooking the dishes, and working the front of the house to ensure their guests have a memorable dining experience. The evening also includes live and silent auctions with proceeds supporting the Career Academy’s programs. GICCA Board Member Mike Callaway, who attended last year’s fundraiser, said about the evening, “Evening with the Stars is a relaxed and enjoyable event but the highlight of the evening is the meal prepared by the students. Seeing their education and hard work come to life in a first-class venue reinforces the value of GICCA and how it’s preparing young people for our workforce of tomorrow.”

To learn more about the culinary program, EIL checked in with Chef Haley Meredith, the Culinary Instructor at the school. Chef Haley is a Golden Isles native who moved back to the area after attending Georgia Southern and Le Cordon Bleu. During her career in Atlanta, Chef Haley states “I met some amazing people and had some unforgettable experiences. Working for one of the tops allows access to well, everything really.” She oversees about 100 students from Glynn Academy and Brunswick High who take the three courses of the program (Intro, Culinary 1 and 2) each year. This year, there are even 8th grade students from Jane Macon Middle School in the program. Chef Haley tries to impress on her students the opportunities that exist in the culinary world, explaining, “That is one thing that I have tried to share with my students. Culinary arts can open so many doors if you are willing to work hard.” She enjoys her time with the students, and hopes to broaden their horizons, “I really hope that they (continues)

will remember that I always encouraged them to try new foods and to be open to trying different types of food or even the same food cooked in a different way.”

With the Golden Isles being a hospitality-driven locale, students with culinary skills training are in line to secure employment from a number of businesses here seeking skilled workers, or they can choose to continue their schooling by transferring to College of Coastal Georgia and then UGA. A student taking this culinary path could end up with four to eight years of training and a degree in food science. Technical training in the culinary fields in turn means a higher level of pay when entering the work force.

One of the two-year culinary students who will be working at the Sea Island fundraiser and was busy getting his kitchen skills dialed in at GICCA is Patrick Boyer. Patrick says that he took the culinary courses because “I’ve always been interested in cooking and wanted to find out more about it.” In the classes, he explained, he learned basic kitchen and knife skills in the Career Academy’s “full-size industrial kitchen with almost every possible gadget and cooking utensil available. There are two large ovens, stoves, a grill, a large flattop grill, and a large deep fryer. It’s a chefs’ dream kitchen.” Patrick also now has Servesafe training and basic OSHA training under his belt. Learning can be tasty too! Last year when GICCA had a cupcake challenge, Patrick’s group won with salted caramel cupcakes. (Ok, yum!) He says this year they had a really fun hamburger project in which they made everything from scratch “including the buns!” While exercising his creativity, Patrick says, “If I mess up, I can just start over. There’s really no right or wrong – unless it tastes really horrible.” And to the delight of his family, he has applied his skills at home, making steak, grilled vegetables, hamburgers, and shrimp stir-fry. He says he’ll cook just about anything, except he’s “not too fond of baking.” Patrick says his confidence in the kitchen has grown because of participating in the classes and he’s learned that he can take on more responsibility and can handle a little more stress than he thought possible when things get busy. Patrick turns 16 in a couple months and wants to find a part-time job in a local restaurant and plans on pursuing a career in the culinary field. Something tells us, he should not have any problem with those goals.

Daniel Veal, Executive Chef at Sea Island is looking forward to working with the GICCA students and says, “We are honored to assist with this great event. Giving back to our community is something that Sea Island has done for many years and we are humbled to be a part of it.” Rod Sawall, 2018 Co-chair and GICCA Board Member tells us “One of the defining and pleasing events of the evening included the student cooks coming up front and being recognized for their efforts in the kitchen. Lots of smiles in the room. The support from the community, as demonstrated by the number of silent auction gifts, was tremendous. Once again, Glynn County showed they support GICCA.”

To learn more about the event or to purchase tickets, visit gica.us or contact Rick Townsend at 912.506.5347 or rick.townsend@gica.us.

Student Patrick Boyer uses the skills learned at GICCA to prepare his family’s dinner.