Scholars, Donors Treated to Student-Produced "˜Carnival' Buffet

The Pennsylvania College of Technology Foundation and the college's School of Hospitality combined efforts to offer a reception honoring individuals, organizations and businesses that have established scholarships at the college. The gathering centered on a carnival-themed buffet of pastries as pleasing to the eye as to the mouth.

The annual Spring Pastry Buffet and Donor Reception, held May 11, offers an opportunity for student scholarship recipients to meet and thank those who have created the funds that help them pay for their college education.

For the college's baking and pastry arts students, the Grand Pastry Buffet offers a unique final exam. All the projects they complete for the event are evaluated based on competency and skills.

The students responsible for planning the buffet and creating each dessert are: Samantha J. Fogleman, of Port Matilda; Francheska M. Gonzalez, of Reading; Jolene M. Graham, of Locust Gap; Marley D. Sampsell, of Julian; Walter C. Talmadge, of Matamoras; and Jason R. Wilson, of Chambersburg.

The centerpiece for the event was a rotating carousel cake, on which each student made his or her own horse. In keeping with the carnival theme, the dessert menu included such "fair food" as cotton candy, caramelized pecan popcorn, cheesecake on a stick, caramel apples and funnel cakes.

To organize the event, the students apply all they've learned over their first three semesters in pursuit of an associate degree from making assorted foods to presenting them.

"So, when they leave, they leave with all the tools they're going to need," said Chef Monica J. Lanczak, instructor of hospitality management/culinary arts. She teaches Pastry Food Show and Buffet Presentation Concepts, the class in which students plan the Grand Pastry Buffet.

The event also offered a final project for floral design students, who created the floral arrangements for the event.

Jasmine Elmore, of Dover, a freshman in the pre-emergency medical services major who received one of Penn College's Presidential Scholarship awards, told the gathering that those who have established scholarship funds at the college are allowing the students to achieve their dreams.

"You are showing us that knowledge is necessary and that we shouldn't let anything prevent us from living our lives to the fullest," said Elmore, a Penn College Student Ambassador.

In her remarks at the reception, Penn College President Davie Jane Gilmour noted that the college and the Penn College Foundation made 1,210 scholarship awards in the 2006-07 academic year, totaling more than $962,000.

That figure, Gilmour said, is more than three times the amount awarded in scholarships at Penn College for the 2000-01 academic year.

For more information about establishing scholarships or making a gift to Penn College, call the Institutional Advancement Office at (570) 320-8020, or toll-free (866) GIVE-2-PC; send e-mail or visit online .

For more information about the academic programs offered by the School of Hospitality at Penn College, call (570) 327-4505, send e-mail or visit on the Web.