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Canterbury House fundraiser features Indian cuisine

On Oct. 2, the Canterbury House hosted a fundraiser at the Trinity Episcopal Church downtown. It was a casual event, with good food promised and a raffle to obtain objects of varying nature, ranging from Husky merchandise to a television set. Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? There’s always a twist in the tale though; the cuisine was Indian! Now the fundraiser itself had my curiosity but Indian food in an American setting got my attention, and being the nosy person that I am, I decided to volunteer to see the reaction to this event.

The menu was aloo gobi (potatoes with cauliflower and spices), sambar (lentils and vegetable mixed gravy), butter chicken with rice (a North Indian delicacy), topped off by gajar halwa (carrot pudding). The food was available in both takeout and seating option. My first responsibility was to usher the people into the seating area and direct them to the counter where they could collect their food. At the start itself, I realized that there was a buzz of excitement to have Indian food due to the expressions of the people walking in. Since this weekend coincided with family weekend, it was nice to see families dining and having Indian food together. I ushered for half the day, in which I was able to get a little girl to smile by gifting her a balloon and meet many former and current members of the Canterbury family. The other thing that was very nice to see was some members of the house wearing Indian garb, especially Rick Buis, executive director of the Canterbury House, in his olive green kurta.

After ushering, I was told to work in the kitchen. (From the frying pan into the fire, eh?) Even though the load on the kitchen kept on increasing with time, the efficiency with which the kitchen staff was working was nothing short of mind-blowing. From plating the food attractively, (of which I was a part), to replenishing supplies whenever we ran out, to changing shifts to making sure no one got overworked, it was a display of hard work and camaraderie at its best. The food was delicious and I’m pretty sure that all the people who attended the fundraiser would agree to this fact. At the end of day, we realized that we had sold 268 tickets, which was monumental since this was Canterbury’s first event on such a large scale. It just goes to show the efforts that were put in by the volunteers into organizing this event and the sheer support that we received from the people of the UP. I would like to congratulate Canterbury House for this achievement and thank all the people who attended this event and made it the success that it was.

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