For a while now, Culinary hasn’t been paid much attention, a sort of social club for seniors with limited exposure, collaboration, and interaction with other clubs, the community, and the school at large. Fortunately, the stagnation seems to be coming to an end, with Mr. Aaron and Club President Karyck Donnelly’s two-prong campaign to increase engagement and membership.

Culinary has largely been a club filled with upperclassmen, which leaves little room for preparing the club for succession upon their graduation and a stunted drive to expand and engage. Now, Culinary’s leadership, once staffed mostly with seniors and juniors, has been reshuffled with a handful of underclassmen as officers.

Enthusiastic and having grown in membership, Culinary has a few planned programs under its belt, including bake sales during lunch, cooking classes, cooking for community events, and spaghetti dinners, with more club-exclusive events including members-only luncheons. The club plans to order shirts with money made through fundraisers in addition to buying snacks and drinks for members to go and grab whenever they’d like during the school day. Fundraiser money will also go towards buying equipment and ingredients for future events.

Culinary’s most recent event was something of a big deal, the Cougar Foundation breakfast saw Sahuaro alumni reputed for their achievements celebrating their induction into Sahuaro’s hall-of-fame, their names now added to the McConnell Gym. In addition to being served omelettes, those of the 40-something guests present who were inducted gave speeches. The breakfast was completely free. “It was nerve-racking,” Karyck said,  “We had to cook in front of everybody.” Nonetheless, she thought it was a fun experience and a great way to get the club’s name out. “We’re serious about cooking, sure, but we’re also serious about having fun while we do it.”

Culinary meets on Mondays at 8:00 in the morning, where they discuss future plans, gather consensus, and forward ideas for events. Those interested in joining can attend meetings in the morning or contact the club’s Instagram @sahuaroculinaryclub.