Student volunteers are cooking up something good. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich-making competition pit freshman floors against one another in the Travers/Wolfe Main Lounge on Thursday, Feb. 6, with each sandwich made going to benefit the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. The culinary contest was part of a larger and still ongoing Community Competition.
“It’s the community aspect we’re striving for,” head of Wolfe Hall residence life Marvin Carter said. “We want to get everyone involved and have fun.”
Instead of simply creating sandwiches from an assembly line, students had to pass a series of small tests in order to produce the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“We wanted to make it as fun as possible,” community advisor and junior psychology major Nina Balicusto said. “We were brainstorming different ideas.”
The competition consisted of seven teams and five different floors from Wolfe and one from Brewster. Each team had its own sandwich-making table and one team advisor.
The sandwich-making process consisted of three parts. The first team member had to win two games of “rock, paper, scissors, shoot” against their team advisor. After this task was completed, the team member would place two plain slices of bread on the table.
Next, the second team member had to answer a trivia question. The questions ranged from “What is another name for ‘sauce’?” to “From what tree do we get the bean necessary to make chocolate?” Upon completion, the team member would spread peanut butter on one slice.
Upon applying the peanut butter, the third team member entered a brief session of Dance Dance Revolution. Advisors would call out commands, such as “left,” “front,” “right” and “back,” and once all dance moves were performed, the team member would spread the jelly and place the two prepared slices together.
Even after the closing of the competition, students stayed in the lounge to create even more sandwiches, still in the spirit of charity.
“We made sandwiches for the hungry, and that’s the ultimate goal,” freshman open options in Humanities and Social Sciences major Emily Maragni said.
The event proved to be a success with over 150 sandwiches ready to be donated to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, according to Balicusto.
“It might just be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but it’s more than that,” community advisor and junior health and exercise science major Nick Luca said. “Every effort, no matter how big or small, can make a change.”
