Purdue: Week 8 - The Grand Finale!

All good things must come to an end. We finished off our final week at Purdue with some exciting activities and showcased all that we’ve been working on this summer!

Throughout the week, Bianca and I perfected our Sustainability powerpoint that will be played during the No Impact Meal for the Purdue freshmen in September. Our goal is to educate the students about Purdue’s current sustainable efforts and to provide them with national statistics that will hopefully inspire them to live a little greener. 

Between the planning and prep for our final presentation, we had the chance to accompany Mary Ann to the Cumberland Park Zoo! Mary Ann had booked the traveling zoo to come visit campus last Tuesday for the Housing and Food Service (HFS) Summer Fun Event, so we made a trip to the zoo to sort out logistics. It was strictly business, of course ;) We just couldn’t pass up a quick visit to see the wallabies, emus, goats, llama, and pony! For being a local zoo that is free to the public, I was surprised by the wide variety of animals. The traveling zoo was a bit smaller, but the HFS staff was still entertained by some portable reptiles, a hedgehog, and 3-banded armadillos.

  

 

On the day of the Summer Fun event, all of the HFS staff was welcome to come by for an afternoon break for some friendly competition, karaoke, and snacks provided by the dining halls. Bianca’s and my main responsibility was to record the scores for the tournament events and determine the overall winner. After work, we also decided to take one last trip down Main Street, and we even stumbled upon some shops that we'd never seen before!

Mid-week pinball break at Main Street Amusements!

8 free games?! Thank you very much!

Finally, presentation day came, and Bianca and I were ready to go! We spent our morning in Hillenbrand Dining Court preparing our Hidden Harvest Pasta Bake. The rest of the Hillenbrand staff, as well as some workers from the Central Production Kitchen, were nice enough to help us prepare the rest of the menu items for our presentation. The afternoon definitely snuck away from us, and Bianca and I were busy decorating and directing right up until presentation time. Delegating tasks to so many people was a new experience for both of us, but it was a final reminder about how important clear communication is in managerial positions.

Duck Pizza

Cheese and Apple tasting bar

Veggie sculptures! One of the chefs made flowers for us out of onions, tomatoes, and turnips!

 Sustainable Artwork

All created from repurposed, forgotten items we found around campus.

After speaking to many of the people we have had the pleasure of working with this summer, Mary Ann presented us with farewell gifts – our certificate of completion and Purdue gear to take back to our home universities. Some of our favorite experiences were working on nutrition education posters, cooking with catering Chef Brian, touring the athletic training facilities with the Athletic Dining Services workers, and learning about each other and ourselves along the way :)

 It was a great summer to be a Boilermaker! 

Farewell, Purdue!