Chicago students raise, cook early Thanksgiving dinner for hundreds

CHICAGO (CBS) - From raising turkeys to roasting the bird, students at one Southwest Side school on Tuesday prepared a large early Thanksgiving spread for hundreds of people.

At the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences , at 3857 W. 111th St. in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood, students' passion for cooking is indescribable—and the kitchen they use for the purpose smells heavenly. But it is where they got their food that makes the experience surreal.

The students were in the process Tuesday of preparing Thanksgiving dinner 350 people who live in the Mount Greenwood.

The school says it has the only working farm in the city.

"It's really a surreal experience, honestly, because I remember like just last week, the turkeys were literally in their pens just like playing around, like walking around, like making noise," said senior Nylah Robinson, "and the next thing you know, like we have them delivered to us."

Animal science students raised two dozen turkeys and grew vegetables that will be used to cook the Thanksgiving dinner. They started cooking the birds at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Meanwhile, students peeled 100 pounds of sweet potatoes, used 100 pumpkins to create 88 pumpkin pies, prepared 50 gallons of gravy, peeled another 120 pounds of white potatoes for mashed potatoes, cooked 35 pounds of broccoli, and used 30 pounds of cranberries to make cranberry sauce.

Michelle Sandifer, executive chef at the Smith Village retirement community in Beverly, is one of the chefs who helped guide them as they cooked.

"They learned zesting. They learned how the sauce thickens from just cooking down, and the cranberries popping open," Smith said.

Egypt West is a senior and also has a passion for cooking and science, but she said the meal she and her classmates have begun creating is more than just food.

"I know the real world, we might have our struggles, might have our downs, but actually giving back and seeing those happy, smiling faces and saying, 'Thank you,' or, 'Oh, you're such a sweetheart,'—just hearing everybody being cheerful and coming together as one—that is like one of the main things I really want to take away from this," West said.

The school said the meal means a lot for some of the recipients, because this might be their only Thanksgiving meal.