On Tuesday, November 11th, the Morgan school hosted over 30 veterans and their family members from the shoreline community for an assembly to honor and thank these heroes. Afterward, the culinary II classes, in conjunction with the Interact Club, hosted a luncheon for the visitors. Veterans and student volunteers gathered in the learning commons to eat food and talk with one another. Morgan’s culinary II classes prepared the food, culinary I students baked cookies, and selected members of the Interact club came to talk to and thank the veterans.

This event has been going on annually for over half a decade. Every year, culinary classes led by Susan Murphy put in a great deal of effort to put on a luncheon the veterans

will love. In preparation, culinary II students made soups, including chicken noodle, squash, turkey chili, and tomato bisque. The culinary classes also made baked goods, including muffins, brownies, cornbread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodle cookies.

A lot of the work is started in the week before the event, with the soup components and baked goods being frozen and then reheated and combined on the day of the luncheon. Students are split into small groups to make each type of soup or baked good. The students figure out what volume of ingredients are needed, and Ms. Murphy shops for the ingredients. Although there are different foods from year to year, Ms. Murphy said, “The veterans like having their favorites when they come back every year.”

Prior to the luncheon, randomly selected members from the Interact club prepared conversation prompts to encourage conversation between the students and veterans. These prompts included fun questions about favorite activities, memories, and life lessons, as well as deeper, thoughtful questions about challenges veterans face, service, sacrifice, and how the Morgan school and Clinton community as a whole can better support veterans.

These prompts resulted in many great conversations between students and visitors. Junior Taha Hussaini had the opportunity to attend the event and talk to the veterans. “It was a very good event, allowing us to connect with veterans, hear their experiences and learn from them.” said Taha after the event. “ I wanted to talk to the veterans and learn from them.”

Ms. Murphy said, “ I love serving the veterans; the students really love it.” One reason Ms. Murphy cares so much about this is due to her family’s connection to military service. “My uncles, one of my cousins, were veterans, and my dad was a World War II veteran, so veterans are very important to me and really important to the community.” Said Ms. Murphy. She also said that this is the least we can do for our veterans, to thank them for their service and selflessness.

The Morgan Veterans’ Day assembly and luncheon serve as a reminder of the service of our veterans and how we should thank and appreciate those who serve our community and country every day.

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