HHS Culinary Teams Celebrate Healthcare Food Workers Week

Last week, HHS' culinary directors and chefs across the country set out to celebrate and recognize their teams for the hard work they put in every day, serving up delicious and nurturing food for their communities. Healthcare Foodservice Workers Week, held each year during the second week in October, serves as an opportunity for managers to recognize their teams for the integral role they play in nourishing the communities that they serve. Every day in hospitals around the country,  HHS Culinary teams provide high-quality, nutritious, and flavorful meals for patients as well as their families, visitors and hospital staff members.

At each of our culinary accounts, HHS directors cooked up a week's worth of appreciation activities for their teams, including family barbecues, prizes and giveaways, special snacks, scavenger hunts, trivia contests and more. Throughout the week of celebrations, directors and chefs shared their stories on Chatter, an HHS social-networking tool that allows our directors and executives to remain in contact with one another from afar. Here are just a few of the stories that were shared about our teams' celebrations.

HHS Culinary Directors celebrate their teams for Healthcare Foodservice Workers Week:

"In celebration of National Foodservice Week, we incorporated our staff's favorite family recipes into our weekly café menu. It's already been a huge success, with several customers requesting copies of the recipes!" - Foodservice Director, Virginia

"We had so many great celebrations this week! Just to name a few: on Wednesday the entire hospital chipped in with every department contributing to stuff our HHS lunch totes with some tasty goodies. Thursday, we had donuts provided by the ER team, along with beautiful new coffee mugs from our HR department. On Friday the whole hospital staff surprised our culinary department in the lobby with a giant cake and tasty punch during our morning huddle! The CEO gave a speech thanking the team and it was amazing!" - Executive Chef, Texas

"We held a 'guess my weight' game with a giant pumpkin that I brought in. After many guesses, Mykul, one of our Patient Ambassadors, had the closest guess and won the pumpkin along with a cool gift basket." - Executive Chef, Tennessee 

"Yesterday we held an awards celebration, handing out out 'Golden Mitt Awards' to each of our valuable team members.  Everyone received a certificate with a new kitchen title: from Keeper of the Cash to Commander of Great Salads and Queen of Roasted Vegetables, everyone received a crisp new pair of oven mitts tied with golden ribbon. Laughs were shared by all!" - Foodservice Director, Virginia

"Last night we held a BBQ for our team members and their families. We had a great turn out--honestly better than I had expected! The staff had a blast with the games that our team came up with and we had plenty of goodies for all." - Executive Chef, Tennessee