Food for ISI Events

As Madeline Trotman used to say, “We prepare many things for a dinner.  But make sure to serve love!”

• We always welcome and need volunteers, when they are available, to come to the event, welcome students, serve food, help with rides, sharing Christ’s love, and helping to follow up with students after the event
  
  • If you plan to follow up with a student, please contact Patrick to keep him in the loop.  Be sure to reach out to students of your same gender.
    
  • If you are not able to attend the event, please arrange to send your dishes with someone else from your church.
    
• Main Dishes
  
  • Vegetarian Dishes
    
  • Fried Chicken
    
  • Fish
    
• Cooked vegetables are preferred over fresh vegetables
  
  • corn on the cob
    
  • savory cooked greens
    
  • brussel sprouts
    
• Food tips:
  
  • Meatballs, Swedish style meatballs, and fried chicken are popular
    
  • Beans or tofu for Indian students (we would like to keep these set aside, to save them for students who, because of dietary restrictions, would like to enjoy these).
    
  • Shish kabobs or skewer type foods are popular
    
  • Couscous with some kind of salty seasoning is popular
    
  • Fruit salad (very popular!)
    
  • Any kind of Chinese, Japanese, or Indian food is popular
    
  • Not too much cheese
    
  • Casseroles are not as popular because the students can’t see what’s inside
    
• Other notes:
  
  • Don't worry about dessert until we get food covered, dessert is not expected. If we get to the dessert stage, zucchini bread and banana bread and stuff like that that is not very sweet is preferred
    
  • Drinks are like dessert: we can just stick with ice water unless we're able to cover all the food.  Then if we get to that point, we could serve ice tea, sweet tea, lemonade, iced coffee, that type of thing.
    
  • In general, dishes that you can make with lots of servings are better than small specialty dishes because we always have lots of guests!
    
  • For food items that need to be BUILT (like hamburgers or tacos or toppings on chili), ideally someone from your church would be beside the table, showing students how to combine the foods.
    
• Foods to avoid:
  
  • Pork and Ham (because we want our events to feel welcoming for Muslim students)
    

Please label your food dishes in two ways.  Make sure your serving platters & utensils are easily identifiable (tape on the bottom) because there are so many different groups involved.  Also, please label the food you have prepared (example: “Thai Chicken Soup: Chicken with Coconut Milk, Spicy”  or “Green Beans and Almonds, Vegetarian”) so students can know what you’ve prepared.
Vegetarian options are important at our events, for Indian students.  Thank you for caring for these folks too!
 
Paper products:

• Cups
  
• Napkins 
  
• Dinner plates
  
• Utensils
  
• Dessert Plates
  
• Soup Bowls