Hospitality students and Guy Fieri Foundation serve up hot meals during disaster response drill

Feeding both those who have faced a natural disaster and the people helping them recover is not a task to be taken lightly.

FIU's Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management students found out firsthand.  

FIU’s Academy for International Disaster Preparedness within the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work annually hosts a disaster field operations exercise at the Biscayne Bay Campus to teach graduate students to lead in times of emergency. The drill brought them together with emergency responders and community partners for a full-scale simulation focused on disaster response in domestic and international environments. Representatives from 25 agencies and organizations participated, including the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Southern Command joined university officials for a fictional scenario around a major hurricane landfall in Cuba.

At the same time, the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism management teamed up with the Guy Fieri Foundation to invite students to work alongside emergency food responders. The idea is help future hospitality professionals understand the logistics of preparing meals for survivors and the first responders serving them.

This marks the second year the Guy Fieri Foundation has been involved.

“The great thing about the foundation and working with the college is that it's a win-win for both of us,” said Brian Daly, Guy Fieri Foundation CEO. “The students are getting real-life experience and participating not only in preparation of the food we are serving today to all the emergency response teams, but it prepares them volunteer should those emergencies happen in the community.”

Ten students took the opportunity to learn about food prep, safety and distribution under the worst of circumstances. Business major Gina Escanaverino was one of the few non-hospitalty students who participated in last year's disaster response drill, and she returned this year as a leader. She coordinated communication and managed volunteers.  

Soon to begin a master's program at Chaplin, Escanaverino believes the exercise gives students a broad understanding of disaster relief services in addition to reminding them of the value of “serving those who serve us every day,” such as the police and firefighters often pressed into emergency roles in the aftermath of life-threatening events such as storms and earthquakes.

“Teaching students with the support of the Guy Fieri Foundation has been a great experience,” said John Noble Masi, assistant teaching professor and culinary lead at Chaplin. 

One of the other goals of the partnership with the foundation: providing hands-on experience for individuals who signed up for a new executive education certificate in Emergency Feeding Logistics: Field Kitchens and Crisis Food Operations, a nine-week online course combines best practices in hospitality and emergency management with insights from experienced disaster-feeding professionals.

“The partnership with the Guy Fieri Foundation reinforced something we already believed, that there is a critical need for trained professionals who understand how to execute large-scale feeding operations during times of crisis,” said Suzanne Bagnera, assistant professor and director of executive education at Chaplin.

“Watching repeat participants like Gina step into leadership roles this year demonstrated the long-term impact and momentum this work can create. We are excited to continue building this initiative and identifying opportunities to develop specialized certification programs focused on disaster feeding, emergency kitchen operations and crisis response leadership.”