The first block Hospitality Foods class, taught by FACS teacher Julie Mundahl, is making multiple meals and baked goods for the Deneen family.
“I had found out about Abby’s situation when another FACS teacher who use to live here in buffalo, told me about a particular family, where the dad had cancer and they were having money issues and they were stressed out,” said Mundahl.
In October of 2011 Freshman Abby Deneen’s dad, Bill, was diagnosed with Neuroendocrine cancer which affects both the nervous and endocrine systems in the body.
“At first it was hard, when my dad was diagnosed with cancer,” said Abby. “My mom and dad had to live down in Rochester, and I had to help take of my little brother. My friends and I have found ways to deal with the situation. After a while I didn’t let it affect what I did at school or with my friends.”
“It’s changed how we live. We were both gone, Bill and I, for a while and there were different people staying with the kids and I would come home on the weekends, but Bill wasn’t able to. He’s getting better now, but he was very very sick before. We couldn’t really do anything and we couldn’t leave him alone. And our family is very active, the kids are in lots of sports and we get do a lot of stuff. But it’s slowly getting better,” said Katie Deneen.
Members of the class are excited to help Deneen and her family. For them it’s just another way that they can help give back to the community.
“I think it’s really nice doing something like this. It helps, for me personally, because I’m in girl scouts. So I do a lot of things like this. It feels good knowing that you’ve done something to help out. and it should definitely be included into future Hospitality Foods classes,” said senior Erin Raisanen.
For the Deneen’s receiving food and other care packages isn’t unusual for them.
“We’ve had our church, when we were gone, come to our house and they pretty much stocked our freezer,” said Katie, “and every Thursday someone brought a hot meal for the kids to have and who ever was staying here, they didn’t have to worry about what to cook.And what the Hospitality Foods class is doing it’s very nice, because I don’t sometimes don’t get home until 5 or 5:30 and so trying to make supper quick before everybody gone or off so it’s hard and this is just extremely helpful.”
As Bill Deneen slowly gets better with each passing day, Abby feels comfort in knowing that there are people out there who are willing to give a helping hand.
“I’m grateful for what the Hospitality foods class is doing. My dad is just starting to go back to work and with my mom working every night, it gets stressful sometimes. But it’s always nice to have a nice, warm actual meal that wasn’t a quick dinner that got microwaved,” said Abby.
Story by Maggie Walstrom, Marah Moy and Kirsten Kaufman
