38 NOVEMBER 2020 By Jennifer Marshall Three alumni from Xavier and Brophy recently joined forces to invent a game that helps young children overcome their picky eating habits. Julia Teeter, a Xavier and UCLA alumna, Jack Rauch, a graduate of Brophy and USC, and Dylan Kertson, an alumnus from Brophy and Santa Clara University, developed Dinner Pal to enable families to enjoy dinner and focus on family time without food-related fights. “When I was a kid, I was a pretty picky eater, and dinner was always a challenge,” Rauch said. “Now, as an adult, I’ve been working to improve my eating habits, and through my research, I realized I could create a game to help families with young kids.” “I have siblings with young children,” Teeter said, “and I’ve been to family dinners where I’ve witnessed the headache of getting them to eat their food.” Teeter, who has a background in psychology, said Dinner Pal is based on positive feedback. “The process rewards good eating,” Teeter said. “We’re less focused on what kids eat as opposed to encouraging them to finish eating what’s on their plate. And children will want to finish their plate so they can play the game.” “We don’t want to focus only on veggies,” Rauch said, “because research shows that when parents fixate on eating fruits and vegetables, their kids see that they’re pushing them, and they’ll push back by not eating them. The goal is to eat everything on their plate.” Parents purchase Dinner Pal every month and receive a new board with game pieces like decorative stickers. Every night that a child eats dinner without an argument, the child is allowed to move a piece on the board and draw a card. The card may contain a fun food fact, a family activity, a recipe, or announce that it’s prize night. All the prizes are prepackaged and range from small toys to crossword puzzles to figurines. In a month, children are eligible to win about five prizes in total. The program is geared toward kids from the age of three to nine. “The cards are all narrated by these unique food characters we’ve created,” Teeter said. “We have a group of year-round characters, like Carter Carrot, and then each month, we feature seasonal characters like Carly Cucumber for the summer.” “The rotating characters are based on what the kids see on their plate at a given time of the year,” Rauch said. In the future, the group hopes to offer three-month and annual subscriptions. Readers who enter promo code ARCADIA will get their first month free. dinnerpal.org Dinner Pal uses creativity to make dinnertime fun Through the use of a game board and fun characters, Dinner Pal intends to help kids focus and make dinner time easy. PHOTO COURTESY OF JULIA TEETER By Jennifer Marshall In January, Phoenix College kicked off their centennial celebration by unveiling a time capsule. The capsule includes written quotes from students, faculty and staff expressing what is most meaningful to them about their time at the college, which was established 100 years ago this past September. The college started celebrating early because many of their usual events have been canceled. Their September 13 Founder’s Day was transformed into a virtual party, and their November Gala is being moved to the Spring of 2022, when they’ll celebrate their 100th graduating class. The administrators of Phoenix Union High School District founded Phoenix College in 1920 because they believed there needed to be more than one college in the Valley. At the time, Tempe Normal School, the precursor to Arizona State University, was the only college in the Phoenix area. The next closest institution for earning a four-year degree was the University of Arizona in Tucson. Phoenix College was started as a two-year school, so the founders partnered with the University of Arizona to develop the curriculum. “One aspect that encapsulates what makes us most unique for the period [is] the fact that we have never been a segregated school,” Development Director Deborah Spotts said. “We’ve always been integrated and open to everyone. That’s always been a point of pride for us.” Spotts relates how, in 1964, Phoenix College’s football team traveled to Georgia to play in the NJCAA Georgia Peach Shrine Bowl Championship. Georgia was very much segregated at that time, so the players and coaches were shocked to be playing an integrated team. “As anyone can imagine for this era, this caused some consternation in the town and the stands,” Spotts said. “Phoenix College has always been ahead of what was happening nationally. We currently have a student enrollment of more than 50% Hispanic. Our diversity is another tremendous point of pride for us.” The college is also famous for having trained civilian pilots for World War II, and when the GIs returned home, Phoenix College was there to offer night school for the vets. Fast forward to the 1980s, and the college was offering computer learning programs that, at that time, were typically only available at large powerhouse universities like Stanford. “We’re set up to serve all types of students in different situations. Students can take classes during the day or at night. We’re very accommodating,” Spotts said. Many students take the core freshman and sophomore classes and then transfer to a four-year university to complete their bachelor’s degree. Phoenix College also offers two-year degrees, such as nursing and dental hygiene, for those who are looking for more immediate and specialized training. “One major project we’ve been working on for the last couple of years, in anticipation of our centennial, is our history book, which is coming out this fall,” Spotts said. Entitled “Our Past. Your Future. The History of Phoenix College,” this coffee table-style book was written by local author and Phoenix College alumna Stella Pope Duarte, with a forward penned by Arizona State Historian Marshall Trimble, who’s also an alumnus. phoenixcollege.edu Phoenix College celebrates its centennial in 2020 History Program Director Dr. Ty Welborn and Development Director Deborah Spotts unveiled the centennial time capsule in January. PHOTO: CHRISTINA FLORA

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