Throughout the month of May, Culinary Instructor Beth Koster and her Culinary students are putting out extraordinary effort to support the Albany Police Athletic League’s Bike Rodeos. The first of three Bike Rodeos was held on Saturday, May 7th, 2016 at Thomas O’Brien Academy of Technology and Science. Chef Beth and her students were driven to the event by Recreation Coordinator Mr. Phillips. Once there, our students were responsible for cooking and serving a barbeque of hotdogs and hamburgers and serving desserts as well.
PAL Bike Rodeos are held every spring at various locations throughout the city of Albany, NY. The purpose of these free community events is to educate youth on bike safety and rules of the road. The Rodeos encourage the city’s youth to bring their bikes to be checked for safety and to see if they need repair. The Bike Rodeos also make sure that bike riders have helmets. Albany PAL provides free helmets to youth that need them. There are many fun events, such as a bike “road test” through a set of traffic cones. Those who successfully complete the test are given a Safety Certificate. All are served hot dogs and ice cream and there was raffle to win a new bike!
Culinary student Alberto Rivera commented, ”It was really nice. They were teaching safety rules. PAL had everything set up for us, so we could jump right in. I was on the grill, cooking hot dogs; then I was serving ice cream. We were learning how to show respect to people we do not know and were showing that we were young people like them. When the event was over, we helped with cleanup. I will be doing it again this Saturday at the next Bike Rodeo!” We thank Chef Beth Koster for always providing her students with diverse and interesting community service opportunities which enable them to practice both technical and soft  skills.