At a glance
The Alfred State Dining Services team has returned to the national stage after receiving a silver award for a New York Harvest Experience it created for the college’s students in September 2015. The award was presented to the team at the annual convention of the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS).
Director of Dining Services Denise Brownell.
The 2016 Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards are presented annually to the best dining services organizations in the country. The dining awards judges pored through more than 100 creative entries at the NACUFS office to choose which ones would take gold, silver, bronze, and honorable mention awards. Alfred State took the silver award in the small school category.
The Dining Services team is part of Auxiliary Campus Enterprises and Services Inc. (ACES), the not-for-profit corporation that provides dining services on campus. In total, ACES has won national awards from NACUFS nine other times.
“This win is so exciting,” said Denise Brownell, director of Dining Services. “We worked so hard to introduce our new and returning students to the great foods of New York and we just knew that we had developed a winning event.”
“The New York Harvest experience was unique because it was completely created by the dining team. We relied on our own imagination to create a truly memorable event that our students still talk about,” explained David Sengstock, ACES executive director.
The experience featured three events, with the kick-off including a bus trip for 20 students to Pankow Farms in Castile to pick apples. Participants were treated to a stop at a local cider mill and a picnic lunch by the falls at Letchworth State Park.
A few days later, Dining Services hosted a free local foods show during the lunch hour. Vendors from across New York brought tasty samples of items grown and produced in New York. Sysco Foods coordinated the show.
“The participants thought that the Alfred State students were the best they have seen. Students were polite and engaged and were a pleasure to meet,” said Mike Fitzgibbon of Sysco.
Finally, the night of the gala dinner arrived and students, using their regular meal plan, dined on “mocktails” with local sparkling grape juice, lobster mac and cheese, local stuffed roasted pork, handmade cider from the apples the students picked, and more.