Excitement is nearing fever pitch as The Rock’s premier culinary showpiece — the 16th staging of the Jamaica Observer Table Talk Food Awards — draws ever closer to its May 29th date. Fifty volunteer students from the University of Technology’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management will be afforded the opportunity to work at the event, immersing themselves in the diversity of the island’s food culture and witness firsthand, the creation of top-shelf menu offerings and service delivery of the restaurants and hotels they hope to someday be employed to.

A second-floor classroom of UTech’s School of Hospitality’s high-rise education block served as the meeting spot last Friday for a pre-Food Awards briefing session. Hosted by Garcia Green-McLennon, the university’s student financing director, the pair of Food Awards Chair Novia McDonald-Whyte and noted event coordinator and stylist Maurine Capleton outlined their expectations of grooming and deportment, as well as professionalism, to the room of attentive volunteers.

McDonald-Whyte, who had long agitated to the UTech faculty that the student volunteers be awarded credits towards their course studies from their Food Awards participation, was ecstatic with the announcement from Green- McLennon that her suggestion would now take effect. The volunteers will also be awarded a stipend for working at the much-anticipated glitzy food event.

— Omar Tomlinson