BY KYLE BARNETT

Staff Report

VACHERIE – Culinary arts students at St. James Career and Technical School will be preparing for a change in atmosphere as they plan to travel from sleepy Vacherie to “The City that Never Sleeps,” New York City, in April. The Prostart program received $1000 from the St. James School Board last month to cover the cost of hotel rooms for their two-day visit.

Students must buy their own plane ticket, but all other costs are covered by in class catering projects the students do for fundraising.

Prostart teacher Rachel Schexnayder said that in her eight years as Prostart teacher she has tried to take her students somewhere every year to expose them to the broader scope of culinary arts.

“I want to expose them to the many things there are in the hospitality field,” said Schexnayder. “Just to give them opportunity to see the world beyond our little Vacherie and Lutcher,”

In order to meet Schexnayder’s goal, classes have been to NYC in the past, but also have jaunted to Chicago and Memphis.

Although the trip to NYC will be for just two days, Schexnayder not only plans on taking the class to French Culinary Institute, where they will learn French cuisine and the in and outs of the hospitality side of the restaurant business, but also on daytrips of the city that will take them to parts of the city known for their culture as much as their cuisine, such as Chinatown and Little Italy.

Through Schexnayder’s program an average of four students become professionally certified each year.

Her hope is that the rest of the students will realize through the trips that there is a lot more to the restaurant industry than making food.

“I hope for them to have an eye opening experience as to what the possibilities are in the culinary field, not to see it as a cook,” said Schexnayder. “To see there are many other opportunities to work in the culinary field besides in the kitchen.”

Schexnayder said there are also a number of opportunities for students to earn college credits through Prostart.

Any student who graduates from the Prostart program is given college credit upon entering a culinary arts program at any of Louisiana’s Technical Colleges. Other colleges, such as John Folse and Delgado Community College, allow Prostart students to take an entrance exam that will give them credit based on their performance.

Schexnayder said a few of her students have gone onto study culinary arts after graduation.

Perhaps this trip will convince a few more students that meeting the needs of a hungry populace is not such a bad job after all.