Members of the grade had prior to this activity started assisting this shelter through donations and we hoped to further give back to the community by helping cook lunch for the men staying at this shelter. As a team, the students organized a three-course meal that they prepared including the shopping for ingredients, the planning and the cooking. The team was guided by the lovely chef Philipp who helped navigate the way through the kitchen and put together the dishes successfully.
One of the students declared “We happily cooked and baked a large variety of meals for a significant number of people, who seemed to enjoy it and we even had some food left over which they used for dinner and future lunches. We found it very helpful to plan all our dishes before the date so that we could have a head start and be prepared. Additionally, precooking some aspects of dishes such as vegetables or desserts was a good idea.“
“Throughout this experience, we were able to learn that even just a bit of effort can really help others”, the students continued. “Since we were all born into families that are fortunate enough to be able to provide food, shelter, and education for us we can often end up living in an illusion. Living in Vienna it can be easy to ignore or not notice the large number of homeless people. By just taking one day of our time and a small amount of money to plan, prepare, and make a meal for a group of people in need we were able to educate ourselves by talking to the people working there. All of us learned a lot about why people are homeless. This experience helped each one of us become more aware of the reality of homelessness in Vienna. “