Kitchen Changes for the New Year

By Penny Rhoads 

Portfolio Elective kids cooking in the new kitchen.

Last spring Ian Holbrook’s dad, John Holbrook, contacted Roni Anton, Project Learn School’s (PLS) Administrator about an IKEA grant for $ 10,000. The grant, sponsored by IKEA was for IKEA materials and design expertise for a given project. The staff thought it would be a great way to get the older kitchen remodeled. Daily votes was the way to win the grant. Roni sent out an email to the PLS community asking each person to vote. She sent reminders each day to go onto the IKEA website and vote for Project Learn. The results came back and PLS had the most votes. This meant that PLS won the ten-thousand dollars worth of IKEA planning and cabinets and hardware. So began the summer renovations of PLS’ old kitchen.

    Joan Fox, PLS’ art teacher, describes the old kitchen as old, dirty, and dingy. There were no doors on the cabinets and at one point, Roni brought some from her house.

    Roni says it took all summer to demolish and rebuild the new kitchen and they had to hire people to help put in the appliances. Lots of people came in to help put together the kitchen. Some of those people were Joan, her daughter Annie, Fran her mother in law, Roni, John Holbrook, Zulette Henry, and James Strauss, Aidan and Cora’s dad.

    Joan says that even before the remodeling the kitchen was used a lot. She says that cooking is a big part of PLS but the new kitchen has made it a lot easier.

    Nadja Anderson Oberman in sixth grade says,” It’s made cooking a lot easier. The new set up makes the kitchen look much bigger and the new kitchen has improved cooking at PLS, so much.” Cooking is a big part of PLS, but with the new kitchen  cooking is much easier.

     Roni says that five or six years ago an anonymous person donated a large amount of money to PLS. In the end, PLS only had to use a small portion of it to help offset the cost of the kitchen. With the extra money it was decided to buy new water fountains for the first and third floor.

     All the groups who cook in the kitchen agree the remodel has been a perfect addition to PLS’ cooking adventures.