In STEP Students' Kitchen, Dinner's Ready and Waiting to Be Gobbled Up

The young entrepreneurs at VVSD’s Secondary Transition Experience Program (STEP) have added another student-run business to their repertoire called Dinner’s Ready.

The full service meal preparation and delivery company, launched earlier this school year, is already such a huge success in the five Valley View School District 365U schools it serves that organizers are making expansion plans.

“Like all of our businesses, we’ve designed this to give our students the skills they need to prepare for a career after they leave us,” said STEP Job Coach Terry Bryant. “They’re learning how to shop, prepare meals, do the accounting…in essence how to prepare and care.”

“I want to work in a restaurant. This is giving me some experience on how to cater and do other jobs in a restaurant,” said STEPstudent Matt Kalis. “And I love to cook.”

“It’s kind of fun,” added student Carl Roberson. “I’m learning how to serve people and how to make sure the customers are happy.”

The business plan is simple. Bryant e-mails a menu to staff members at the five participating schools on a Tuesday. By Friday staff members return their orders to the Dinner’s Ready team. The students spend Monday taking inventory and shopping for whatever they need. On Wednesday they begin preparing the meals that have been ordered. And on Friday (10 days after the initial e-mail) they deliver the meals to the schools.

The meals are prepared and then frozen. Meals can stay in the freezer for 3-6 months. Directions for how to reheat the meals are provided on the package along with nutritional information.

Meals are $13. Desserts are $5. The menu changes each month (this month it’s mostaccioli, spinach and beef lasagna, apple & peach cobbler). To showcase the new menus, the team, which includes student Kylie Bryant, also conducts monthly “tasting” events at each school.

“Students plan every aspect of the business,” said Dinner Ready Supervisor Melanie Phelan, a Transition Specialist with STEP.

Like other STEP businesses such as the Coffee Shop, popcorn sales, the Snack Shack, and the car wash, profits go directly to the STEP program.