By PRCC Staff
As a Resident of El Rescate, Roxy Palagio has always wanted to be involved in some form of cooking or baking. Her love of working in the kitchen led her to her culinary journey at the number one culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago, where she hopes to receive an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Baking and Pastry Arts.
Palagio has taken advantage of all the resources that El Rescate has to offer to make her dream a reality. An average day for Palagio begins early morning when she gets on the bus and heads off to school, she arrives back home at 2:30pm to get ready to go to work in Rosemont Illinois. She begins her shift at a restaurant at 4pm, works until 11pm and them makes her way back home to rest, and start her day over again. “It’s a rough schedule but when you are determined, things work out,” says Palagio. Palagio has been creating beautiful tasty desserts at school and at least twice a week she brings dessert home to share with staff and residents. Case Manager, Zinaida Lopez, eagerly awaits for Palagio to walk in at 2:30pm to see if she has a pastry box with her with some delicious desert in it.
“Everything she makes is so delicious,” states Lopez. All El Rescate staff encourages Palagio, and all are very proud of how hard she works. But it’s not all fondant, and crepes, states Palagio, “make no mistake about it, this is a tough, challenging, and demanding role that only those who are truly dedicated to the craft can survive and thrive in, I know I will.”
