Georgian College culinary students and instructors made Christmas come early at the Barrie campus Friday.
In what has become an annual tradition, they cooked and packed 250 turkey dinners, with all the fixings including dessert, for distribution to Busby Centre and Elizabeth Fry Society Simcoe-Muskoka clients.
“Christmastime is hard for a lot of people,” said Jacob Magny, a second-year culinary student at Georgian. “We’ve made all the stuff we put in the baskets.”
That would be turkey, of course, along with mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables — carrots, beans and squash — and turkey gravy.
“I feel excited being able to help out people during the festive period,” said Sikemi Oye, also a second-year culinary student at the college.
“It feels good. It’s like a charitable thing,” said Raihaan Shaikh, another second-year student.
Phillip Leach, chef and co-ordinator of Georgian’s culinary program, said Busby and Elizabeth Fry clients aren’t the only ones who benefit from the turkey dinners.
“It definitely gives the volunteers (with these groups) a little bit of a break,” he said.
Leach said Georgian College has been preparing, packaging and distributing turkey dinners for 18 years.
“We treat it as a community service in our program,” he said.
