Independence High School students in Culinary Arts II and III classes are seen here with school media specialist Jeff Jones (left foreground) and culinary arts instructor Sonya Stowe (right foreground), Feb. 16, 2010. (Photo: Qcitymetro.com.)

The students and staff at Independence High School are cooking up something special to benefit earthquake survivors in Haiti.

On Thursday, Feb. 18, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., the school’s mall area will be transformed into a makeshift restaurant where visitors can buy $5 spaghetti dinners, with proceeds going to earthquake relief.

The fundraiser was the brainchild of Independence Principal Mark Bosco, and the restaurant will be named, appropriately, Bosco’s Bistro.

Jeff Jones, the school’s media specialist, said he hopes the event will attract at least 400 diners.

Visitors will be allowed to eat in or order their food to go. Meatballs are $1 extra. Anyone who brings in a pair of gently used shoes (no stilettos and steel-toed shoes) will get a free dessert.

Students in the school’s Culinary Arts II and III classes will prepare the meals, said Sonya Stowe, one of two culinary arts instructors at the school.

“The students are very excited,” she said. “They are happy about giving back. We talked at length about how fortunate we are, so we want to take an opportunity to give back to our community, which is a world community, even though it’s miles away.”

Stowe said students in her advanced classes prepare meals for Independence staffers each Thursday, which proceeds going to buy additional food and supplies.

Stowe said the training her students get in by working in a restaurant-style environment will help them get into culinary schools upon graduation.

Noyes Smith, a senior, said he plans to attend Johnson & Wales this fall.

“I’ve always liked to cook,” he said. “I learned how to cook when I was younger. My mother, she was a cook, and my father, he could cook. I wanted to pass it down through the generations.”

Smith said the destruction in Haiti has been a topic in several of his classes at Independence. He said he was inspired by some of the stories of survival and is pleased that he can now give back.

In addition to the culinary arts class, students from the Academy of International Business will sponsor the shoe drive, and members of Jr. ROTC will perform a drill.

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