After a three-year hiatus, culinary arts students have formed a new club called Foodies Unite. However, this time they want all Contra Costa College students to be involved in the program.
Four culinary arts students decided to start the club up again while at the beginning of the semester meeting for the department.
It was Foodies Unite President Audrey Borreni, who started the paper work to revive the club.
It was also culinary arts major and secretary of the club Lauren Patrick who relayed the message during the meeting.
“During our meeting, me and my friend made an announcement during class,” Patrick said. “We found out that Audrey and Mayra were already doing the paperwork for the club.”
The last culinary arts club came to an end in 2012 because a lot of the members transferred to four-year universities.
Last spring semester, Associated Student Union Vice President of Club Affairs Safi Ward-Davis reached out to culinary arts professor Elisabeth Schwarz about starting back up a culinary club.
The club filled out the packet on Sept. 18 and seemed really excited to get it the club started, Ward-Davis said.
“They always wanted to start the club, so I went to Schwarz about activating the club again,” she said.
One of Foodies Unite’s main objective is to get members who love food, and who are not just culinary art students.
Borreni said she is not excluding anybody from the club, but she is looking for members who love the culture of it and like to try new things.
“Foodies Unite is about bringing everyone who’s a foodie together, but it’s not just for the culinary students,” she said. “I want the whole campus to be involved in the group.”
The group plans on going to restaurants and bars to review them and hang out. They also want to experiment with doing demos on how to cook. So far they have 30 signatures of people wanting to join the club, Borreni said.
“We have eight active members in the club,” she said. “We want to go to restaurants and write reviews on them, like having our own little Yelp.”
The club is looking forward to reaching out to everyone during Club Rush this week.
They will have some samples and food at its booth, and a chance to get to meet the members of the club.
“We are planning to do street tacos and nachos at Club Rush,” Foodies Unite Vice President Mayra Hernandez said. “We are definitely going to have a table for that, and we’re hoping to have some fun there.”
Foodies Unite has its own Facebook and Instagram. You can add them with Foodies Unite and follow them on @FoodieUnite.
It would be a good place to check out what foods or restaurants they gone to.
“We’ve actually started our own Instagram and Facebook page, so people can actually go up and post picture of the food we tried,” Borreni said.
The club is also a place network with other people. A lot of the culinary students have jobs in the food business. It also gives people an idea of what the culinary art department does.
“We want to think about people who want to go in to the food industry,” Borreni said. “It would be nice for some of us to open doors for job opportunities for other people.”
At Club Rush the culinary arts students will push to get more non-culinary arts students in the club. They are working on ways to make them feel this is anybody’s club.
“We won’t be in our chef jackets at Club Rush,” Hernandez said. “We don’t want to make people feel isolated by making them feel this is only for culinary.”
The club will meet every first Tuesday of each month, but students can find out more information about the group at Club Rush this week.