EAST PROVIDENCE — The East Providence High School Career and Tech Center’s Culinary Arts program and two local non-profits embraced the spirit of the season earlier this week by making and delivering Christmas dinners to residents in need across the city.

The East Bay Community Action Program (EBCAP) provided the EPCTC Culinary staff and students with six turkeys, which were then prepared with sides into 75 individual plates. The meals, along with dessert, were given to the Good Neighbors Food Pantry/Soup Kitchen for distribution over the course of the holiday week. (Both non-profits have bases here in East Providence in the Riverside section of the city.)

“EBCAP reached out to us and said we have some turkeys to donate, how many do you want? And we probably should have said more, but we said give us six, but we probably should have said 10. We ended up making 75, but I actually think they could possibly feed two people, depending on who’s eating them,” said Chef Bill Walker, co-director of the EPCTC Culinary Arts curriculum with Chef Marie-Claire McKillip and also aided by first-year advisor Chef Jennifer Montanez.

“We didn’t want to sound greedy or whatever, but they had 75 to give out,” Walker continued. “So next year we’re going to ask for 10 and we’ll pretty much be able to make twice as many dinners as we did this year.”

The school donated the ingredients for the stuffing, the vegetables and also supplied the potatoes for mashing. The gravy was made from the turkey drippings. Clearing out the Culinary freezers in preparation for the upcoming holiday recess, Walker said there were ample numbers of student-made loaves to create several pans of bread pudding for dessert. Classes baked chocolate chips cookies as well.

McKillip and Walker made special mention of Tony Fonseca and the folks at “Packaging and More,” an East Providence company that supplied the three-compartment containers for the dinners that are both freezable and microwavable.

“We thought if we’re cooking it here, this is for East Providence by East Providence and made by East Providence kids, and this year the food was also donated from East Providence, so we felt it was only fitting that this should go to help people in our own community for sure,” Walker added.

McKillip explained the students who helped prepare the food did so with their “WIN” block of time during the day, the “What I need” block where the pupils can choose of their own volition to do a variety of school-related activities.

“They are all Culinary students. They come in during their ‘WIN’ block. We do extra help and if we, for example, have a function going on we’ll use them to help us prepare anything extra we need,” McKillip continued. “And it’s also a place where they can come to feel safe and comfortable. So if they’re missing something and don’t necessarily want to go to that classroom they can come here and work with us.”

Added Walker, “And they can catch up on their skills. It’s really an excellent time in Culinary and we can very often use that help.”

It’s the second time the Culinary program has worked with Good Neighbors on a similar effort. Previously, past and present EPCTC staff and students along with volunteers received food donated by a pantry in North Attleboro to be prepared for the Mathewson Street Church, which provides holiday dinners for those who use the Crossroads homeless shelter in Providence.

“We’re actually going to send most of these out to our home-bound clients, our delivery clients. For a variety of reasons they can’t leave their houses so we deliver to them. So this is a perfect meal. Some of them live alone, some live as a couple, elderly couples, so this is literally is the perfect size. And the bread pudding will be served in-house in our soup kitchen,” said Good Neighbors executive director Katelyn Mushipi, who was unaware of the bread puddings portions and was “pleasantly surprised” to received the desserts.

Good Neighbors staff and volunteers were set to begin delivery of the dinners Thursday, Dec. 22, and continue Friday, Dec. 23.