Senior Trip Chili Fundraiser at the Hyer's Home - Part II

All photos and text by Ted Jameson, staff pseudonym

The Chili Crew taking a well-deserved lunch break at the Hyer's house

On Saturday, January 19, 13 seniors and Jeff and Denise Hyer worked together for the second time this school year and made another 16 gallons of Jeff's chili to help raise money to defray the cost of the Senior Trip next May. So far the seniors have made 36 gallons of chili within two months! So far they have raised over $1,000 in profit. This amount is possible because of the generosity of parents who donate the ingredients or Stop and Shop gift cards, which allows the sales to be very close to 100% profit.

The senior arrived in Wellfleet at 9 a.m. (on a Saturday!!!) To help jump start the morning, Jeff Hyer used his espresso machine and made lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, and just plain French-pressed coffee. Later fresh fruit smoothies were made.

Ben Pilch and Shannon Slater fry bacon in preparation for others to saute the onions to begin the chili base.

Like last November, to tame the the large quantities of ingredients the students were assigned teams and worked at various stations, such as onion and garlic cutting, steak searing, steak cutting, onion/garlic sauteing, can opening, bean draining and rinsing, and pot stirring.

The process began at 9 a.m. and ended at 6:25 p.m. when several students took all of the packaged chili quarts to the school to be stored in the student refrigerators. Thank you to Mrs. Miles who volunteered to open up the school to allow the students access. Those who purchased the chili are able to pick it up on Tuesday, Jan. 22.

As Buck Owens Would Sing: "Crying Time:" Denise Hyer and four students work on chopping onions

Ben Pilch cubes smoked pork to be included later in the chili

Anna Campbell and Shannon Kelly seared over 28 pounds of steak over a wood fire

Shannon Kelly checks the sear on a steak. How does she see through all of the smoke?

Casey Cunningham and Ketryn Kochka work on peeling 100 cloves of garlic.

The infamous Ugg Incident. Where's Tom Brady when you need him?

Because of all of the snow and wet conditions, students were asked to remove their shoes prior to entering the Hyer's house and waking around on the wood floors. Unbeknownst to Jeff and Denise was that three of the young ladies had identical pairs of black Ugg boots and all were the same size and in good condition. It took five minutes to sort out whose was whose. Fortunately that was the only tense moment of the day. Ugh!