Food & Wine event raises money for trip

The Fourth Annual Food & Wine Event took place on April 10 in the Gymnasium with the goal to raise money for scholarships to send six to eight culinary arts students to Italy.

After raising the amount of $30,000, at least six students will be able to go abroad to Parma, Italy for an international culinary experience.

"I think we reached our goal to raise funds to send six to eight students to Italy this year," culinary arts department Chairman Nader Sharkes said. "We will guarantee at least six students to study abroad."

This is the fourth year that Sharkes has organized the event at Contra Costa College. The past two years, the fundraiser raised money to send students to China. Before coming to teach at CCC, Sharkes worked at Diablo Valley College, where he put on similar events.

"This is Chef Nader's project. As an instructor he wants to give culinary students an opportunity to go abroad to learn and have culinary experiences abroad," culinary arts major Erlinda Vance said. "This is the fourth year that he has done this at CCC, but he did it before at DVC and once he moved here, he continued doing it."

Ten culinary arts students applied to receive the scholarships.

Instructional assistant Christina Gauthier said that the students were challenged to go out into the community and get donations and bring participants to the event. They earned points and these points determine who will receive the scholarships.

The event featured 39 restaurants and 32 wineries from around the Bay Area. The food was an eclectic mix from Italian, Thai and Mexican to seafood, sausages and tofu.

During the event, there was a cake raffle. Tickets were $5 each and a winner was announced every 15 minutes.

There was also an auction led by auctioneer John Pereira that sold various items, including Giants tickets and U.S. Open tickets, as well as chef jackets and chef uniforms, tequila and restaurant certificates.

After the auction ended, people continued to enjoy the event, tasting the variety of food and wines being offered.

"Everyone is having a good time," attendee Pam Wheeler said.

The event was more than a fundraiser; it also brought the community together and created good publicity for CCC, Vance said.

For the culinary arts students, it was also a chance to gain experience and practice interacting with the public.

"As a student of the culinary arts department, you gain experience and you are able to talk to people and get them to donate thousands of dollars for the students," Vance said.

Sharkes was extremely proud of his students.

"I think our students did an outstanding job and I was extremely proud of them. They really stepped up and were the professionals I expected them to be. That was really the highlight of the day," he said.

One criticism of the event was that there was not enough seating for all who attended and since there were a lot of senior citizens, this was a slight inconvenience.