Apr 12, 2024 By Karen Mansfield 5 min read

Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Food truck 1
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Greene County CTC unveiled CTC Eats, its student-run food truck, at the school’s open house on Wednesday.

Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Greene County Career Technology Center held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new food truck, CTC Eats, on Wednesday.

Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Bryce King, a senior in the Greene County CTC culinary arts program, dishes out lobster mac and cheese during the unveiling of the school’s student-run food truck.

Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

The commercial-grade kitchen in the CTC Eats food truck includes a 40-inch grill, deep fryers, a sandwich station, steam tables, a stove and oven, coolers, and other amenities.

It’s a food truck. And a classroom on wheels.

On Wednesday, Greene County Career and Technology Center unveiled its student-run food truck, the first of its kind in the region, during the school’s open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The food truck, which the culinary arts students named CTC Eats, was created in partnership with the Community Foundation of Greene County and several local businesses, said Dan Wagner, the school’s culinary arts instructor.

The green and black truck, equipped with a fully operational commercial-grade kitchen, will allow CTC’s students to develop culinary, financial and entrepreneurial skills needed to run a business, said CTC Administrative Director Mark Krupa.

“This truck is going to provide our kids with a wonderful educational opportunity,” said Krupa. “It’s about entrepreneurship, and the students are creating a business where they get hands-on experience, they get to manage it, they get to learn about marketing and point-of-sale operation, running a food truck at events, making a menu, and the business and finance sides of the operation.”

It’s expected to be up and running at the end of May, and CTC Eats will appear at school-related and community events.

The truck also will be available to assist during emergencies and natural disasters, such as flooding.

“The food truck can be mobilized to meet the needs of first responders if there is an emergency,” said Krupa. “This is going to benefit everyone in the community.”

Students and Wagner will man the truck, prepare food and fill orders at events.

The money the students make will go back into the program to support CTC education pathways that are involved with the project. About 35 students from Greene County school districts are enrolled in the popular culinary arts program.

The menu will vary, but will include a handful of signature items, such as roast beef dip sandwiches and grilled Reubens, and will drop in recipes contributed by alumni of the culinary arts program who are working across the country in the culinary industry, Wagner noted.

“Last night, we did an unbelievable Philadelphia cheese steak fries, which is like a Philly cheese steak sandwich on fries instead of a bun,” said Wagner.

The students plan to partner with local farms for produce in an effort to source fresh, locally grown ingredients.

For example, corn purchased from a local farm can be sold at the Greene County Fair, or used in a Mexican street corn dish, Wagner said.

During the open house, culinary arts students served up lobster mac and cheese, kielbasa and sauerkraut, spicy meatballs, nachos, and other items – all of which received positive reviews from those in attendance.

The food truck was the brainchild of David Calvario, executive director of the Community Foundation, who approached Krupa and Wagner about the idea nearly two years ago. They have collaborated since then to launch the food truck.

“The experiences Dan Wagner’s graduates will have through this classroom on wheels will be priceless,” said Calvario at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “This was a community-wide project and undertaking. This was about bringing our community together for a purpose and a collaboration, and we got it done through a heck of a lot of grit. But just as importantly, this is to train up the next generation of workforce development in our county.”

Wagner said the community raised more than $100,000 to purchase and build out the truck, a former utility box truck that was modified into a state-of-the-art food truck by Titan Food Truck Manufacturing in Columbus, Ohio.

The food truck is peppered with colorful decals representing the community donors who contributed to making the truck a reality, including a “Power of Greene” decal.

Said culinary arts program student Ellie Turner, a junior at Waynesburg Central High School, “Building CTC Eats has been such an adventure, from not only learning how to set up the flow of the kitchen, but also doing the management and the paperwork side of it. This truck has provided me with so many managerial skills already, and it’s going to provide me and all my peers with many different skills, with whatever path of life we decide to go on.”