BB2C Student Perspective: Brookelyn Heiss and Payton Mullen, MHS
On November 9th BB2C hosted our Donor Appreciation Open House at the Epicenter. It was a wonderful evening celebrating our donors, visiting with friends, learning about Makerspace activities, and enjoying fine food. To make the evening even more special, and in keeping with our mission to engage and connect youth and teens, all of the food for the evening was prepared by two high school students. Brookelyn Heiss, MHS senior graduating early in December 2018, planned the menu and prepared eight different tasty appetizers including a mini taco and lettuce wrap station, broccoli vegetable cheese dip, and salmon dip. Gourmet mini cupcakes were baked by Payton Mullen, MHS freshman. Brookelyn, who will be attending the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point in January 2019 and majoring in Dietetics, took on the responsibility of catering the event.
When Brookelyn was asked about her thoughts on the event she had a lot to share.
“I quickly learned that more goes into this kind of event than I had ever imagined. It started weeks in advance with determining menu items and testing the recipes. Once the week of the event approached it was a busy and very thrilling time. This was the part that I underestimated, it took a lot of time to do all the cooking. I am thankful we planned what days we were going to do everything and we were able to do multiple things at once. Time management became a huge part of the food preparation, and it kept everything on track. Once we started cooking on Wednesday I would come home between classes and cook, then go back to class as needed. All the food came together better than imagined, and getting to meet and serve everyone the food I made was an amazing experience. From this I have taken away so much that I can apply to my upcoming college experiences. As I major in dietetics, I will have this experience to help me. The BB2C open house provided me the opportunity to see the amount of work, dedication, and planning it takes to prepare food for a large event. From knowing the little things such as how everything will be served or kept warm/cold, to the vital things such as the ingredients for food allergies. The BB2C open house provided me a great learning experience and I am happy to have been a part of it.”
When we were deciding on desserts for the event, avid baker Payton Mullen was asked if she would be interested in making some of her cupcakes. She researched recipes and selected bacon maple, Oreo, Buckeye, and lemon cupcakes.
Payton’s remarks on her experience: “I had a wonderful experience baking cupcakes for building bridges. I have never baked that many cupcakes at one time and I learned a great deal. There is a lot of preparation that goes into such an event. First, I researched and experimented with some recipes. After practicing and narrowing down the cupcake choices, I developed a shopping list. The following evening, I baked the cupcakes and made the icing. On the day of the event, I piped the icing on to the cupcakes. Time management was very important because of the amount of cupcakes that were needed. This was a great experience and I had a lot of fun. Plus, there was some pretty tasty treats.”
The appetizers were amazing, the cupcakes were delicious, the Makerspace activities were interesting, and the celebration was enjoyable. Special thanks to Brookelyn, Payton, and the other Marietta High School students that helped serve food, along with Makerspace volunteers, BB2C Board Members, and BB2C staff for making our Donor Appreciation open House so memorable. We are hoping to have Brookelyn return from UWSP next year to cook again a Payton to bake her cupcakes!!!
Brookelyn’s last remarks: “Last thing, I just want to say thank you to everyone from BB2C who helped and provided me with this opportunity. Specifically, I would like to thank Suzy Zumwalde and Payton Mullen. Without them, this event’s menu would not have been so successful, so thank you. I am happy to have had this experience with the BB2C and would love to do it again.”