These Dobbins High grads’ summer vacation was probably better than yours

When I enrolled in high school, college prep was the only option.

Vocational education was seen as “less than” — but that was way before university costs began skyrocketing. Over the years, I, like many other Americans, have become less convinced about the value of a four-year degree, particularly for certain majors.

It’s refreshing to see that there’s an increase in young people opting for careers in the trades such as carpentry. “The Toolbelt Generation,” as the Wall Street Journal recently called young people choosing trade schools over college, is becoming more of a thing.

So when I heard an instructor at Murrell Dobbins Career and Technical Education High School in North Philadelphia was raising money to take his culinary arts students on an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy, I was thrilled.

Dobbins is a big public high school with the same safety concerns that plague other schools in Philadelphia. It’s not often you hear of vocational students getting opportunities like a trip of a lifetime. We need more of this.

After they returned, the instructor, Donte Precia, invited me to stop by the school for lunch and to hear about their adventure abroad. I walked in expecting sandwiches and chips. Instead, lunch was served inside the Flame and Steel Restaurant located on the third floor of Dobbins’ imposing eight-story, Moderne-style building.

The cooks and servers were all recent graduates of the school’s culinary arts program. I watched as a smiling young woman, dressed in black pants and a white shirt, approached and placed a knife and fork in front of me before disappearing back inside the school’s professional-grade kitchen.

For starters, they put out a cheese and veggie platter, followed by cannellini bean soup. (The students tasted it for the first time in Italy, but adapted it since some of them don’t eat pork.) Next up was frutti di mare — seafood atop a bed of penne — and grilled eggplant with a balsamic glaze. They even baked homemade cookies.

Since I wasn’t watching, I assumed Precia had cooked everything, but he corrected me. “I give out the instructions,“ he said. “The students follow the instructions, and they make the food.”

Precia got the idea to take his culinary arts students abroad on Thanksgiving 2022, after his niece, who attended Carver High School of Engineering and Science, told him about a school trip to Germany.

He told me, “I said, ‘If E&S can go to Germany, my kids can go overseas, too.’”

Originally, they set their sights on Paris. But that idea got scratched because of the Summer Olympics. To pay for it, Precia and students catered various events for the School District of Philadelphia, the police department, and other city offices, earning roughly $1,500 to $2,000 per event. They raised around $19,000 in about five months but still needed $14,000.

So, Precia asked his daughter, Donyia, to create a TikTok video about their fundraising efforts, which went viral. In just a few days, they raised $24,000. Not only did he have enough to fund the trip, Precia also was able to give out a few $1,000 scholarships, pay tuition for four students to attend a summer program at Walnut Hill College’s summer program for high school juniors, and also gift 19 graduating seniors with chef supplies.

The experience really opened the eyes of the six young people selected for the 10-day trip abroad. For Da’miya Scott, 18, it was her first time out of the country. She marveled at how even a fresh tomato tasted different: “It’s a fresher dining experience.”

It opened Precia’s eyes, as well. He’s thinking even bigger now.

Precia hopes to purchase a 59-foot mobile kitchen at a cost of around $175,000 that can be driven to the annual Roots Picnic and other local events. He also wants to raise enough funds to take 10 students to Spain and Portugal during the summer of 2025.

In the process, he wants to spread the word about what Dobbins students can do, in hopes that students who might have chosen to attend Central High School and Girls’ High School will consider enrolling. In addition to culinary arts, Dobbins offers 12 career and technical programs including cosmetology, fashion design, biomedical technology, and digital media production.

Not everyone plans on going to college, nor should they. Precia pointed out, “I believe that when you have a CTE education, that’s something that you can fall back on.”

I’m a big proponent of teaching young people marketable skills. I like it even better when students don’t have to go into debt to learn.

With the skills these culinary arts students have already learned, the world can be their oyster — and they shouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out how to shuck it.