Secret in sweet potato pies for TASK
Toll Gate Grammar School in Pennington may be the facilitator for preparing 700 Thanksgiving dinners for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) for the last 28 years, but without the help of the Hopewell Valley community the project would never come together.
Each grade is responsible for bringing in a specific part of the meal — green beans, fruit juice, gravy, cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, sugar and evaporated milk for the pies.
With the help of Superintendent Tom Smith, Pennington Mayor Tony Persichilli, Toll Gate Grammar Principal Tana Smith, officer Steve Friedman and many parents, grandparents and relatives, 275 sweet potato pies are prepared for TASK.
Every Toll Gator knows, without giving it a second thought, what the final and most important ingredient is in making sweet potato pies for TASK. That secret ingredient is a "pinch of love."
Twenty-eight years ago, the need to help neighbors was recognized and since then the community has not hesitated when called into action to help out.
The Girls Scouts bake loaves of cornbread while the Cub Scouts decorate lunch bags that Timberlane Middle School students pack with lunches. Area pre-schools make cranberry sauce. The owners of Sumo Sushi donated refrigerated vans to keep the food fresh for delivery.
Gloria Nilson Realtors and Callaway Henderson Sotheby’s Realtors donate more than half of the 60 plus turkeys needed to provide the meals. The donated roasted turkeys are carved at a "carve-a-thon" held at Toll Gate cafeteria by parent volunteers.
Emily’s Café and Catering supplies pie ingredients and boxes. Fifth-graders make pie boxes and load delivery trucks. A third-grade class unloads the vans and transforms the dining hall at TASK as students cover the walls with handmade turkeys, fall leaves and messages of inspiration, made by every student at Toll Gate. Countless parents and grandparents bake pies, collect food, organize students and make it happen.
Cathy Brown and Pam Wallace have been co-chairs for several years. Ms. Brown said that when she took over this position, she was told the project essentially "runs itself," She soon found out that is not the case. There are more hands that work together than can be counted.
The Toll Gate community is thankful for the boundless efforts from all of the volunteers, contributors, families and the community at large who donated time and money to help support this effort and make sure that everyone has an opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving — a time of caring, sharing and giving — with a hot, home- cooked meal . . . always with that finishing touch, "a pinch of love."
For more information, about this project,
visit: http://tollgategrammarpto.shutterfly.com/task25.