Student cookie-makers at Patchogue-Medford High School get new commercial-grade kitchen, thanks to federal grant
Teaching Assistants Nicole Gruter, left, and Nicole Dougherty, right, from the ACES class, serve slices from the cookie cake mixed and baked inside the new commerical kitchen at Patchogue-Medford High School in Medford, Wednesday. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
Most school days, the Patchogue-Medford Raider Bean Cafe sells out of its 200 student-baked oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies and coffee.
And now the high school student-run cafe, led by four teachers, 36 special needs students, and 10 student mentors and interns, has moved into a new commercial-grade kitchen at the high school. There, the teens will get hands-on experience of working in a restaurant kitchen.
The program started three years ago, as teachers wanted to broaden the limited work-experience opportunities students had during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students started making about 40 cookies daily out of one conventional oven and the success quickly propelled the school to expand their kitchen with additional ovens before a new kitchen was needed.
“During COVID, we were really struggling to find places for students to go and experience work-based learning skills. So, we decided to create our own in-house program,” said Jessica Lukas, assistant superintendent of special education and pupil services. “As the program grew, we had what was a residential-like kitchen and realized we needed something bigger to give our kids, an experience to prepare them for the real world and hopefully even employ them in our central kitchen one day.”
The new expanded kitchen at the high school, which opened Wednesday, was built using funding from a federal Individuals with Disabilities Education grant.
The program assists students from 9th grade until they turn 22. Labor is split between the first three periods of the day, when freshmen students may begin preparing recipes, then they are baked by the next period and sold between periods by older students from the classroom’s window.
In the kitchen, shelves are stocked with bags of Tollhouse chocolate chips and refrigerators are full of butter, sugar and flour.
Cookies sell for about $2 each, along with coffee, tea and hot chocolate. Proceeds throughout the year have gone to support scholarships or pay for extra bus trips to prom, said special education teacher Michael Taylor.
“Our kids get the opportunity to socialize with other students and they become rock stars with other kids they’re interacting with,” Taylor said. “It gives them invaluable social experiences and a great opportunity.”
Students in the class have gone to work in the school’s central kitchen, which the Raider Bean Cafe is modeled after. Other students have gone to intern at local restaurants.
Patchogue-Medford senior Natalie Vizcaino, 18, of Patchogue, works as an intern at the kitchen to help students make and sell cookies. She said she started helping students with the inception of the program three years ago.
“I work not only as a role model, but as a friend,” she said. “These kids mean the world to me so I’m so grateful to be part of this class to help others.”
Freshman Jake Caruso, 15, said he helps make cookies and even make deliveries to teachers.
“It shows how much good work we do and how much effort we put into it,” he said.
John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.
