This post features student writing. 

The empanadas group consisted of Owen, Hamza, Saif, and Omar.  Our initial idea was to host an empanada food competition at school.  After giving it some thought, we decided to shift gears and distribute the empanadas we made to the community children.  Instead of just ordering 300 empanadas, we chose to immerse ourselves in the local culture by making a portion of the empanadas.  We ended up ordering 200 empanadas and making 70 ourselves. Our next job was to distribute them. Saif and Omar sat in the car with the help of a Dominican friend and handed the empanadas to Hamza and Owen who then handed them out to the kids. We would like to give a shout-out to the cooks who made the majority of the empanandas and made this project possible. We’d also like to thank Jason for coming with us and making this project a lot easier. We helped the community twice; first by giving business to the local empanada cooks and second, we helped by giving a meal to kids in need.  We also learned many things. We learned how to make empanadas and a few Spanish words such as “gratis” (free). We also learned that in Dominican culture it is not polite to hand people food when your hands are directly touching the food. Therefore we handed them out in napkins. We learned a lot and it was definitely worth it!  We would definitely do it again if we had the time.

-Omar, Saif, Hamza, and Owen