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NEMO White Paper: How to Host a Profitable Pasta Dinner Fundraiser by
Thanks Kathie/NEMO,
I have several questions about these dinners. How much food do you actually prepare? For example, how many people will a pound of pasta prepare? Salads, dinner rolls, etc…? How much can you expect people to actually eat?
Also, what do you feel is the minimum amount of “manpower” required for a fundraiser like this? How many cooks, waiters, cleaners, etc? We have a hard time getting more than 5 or 6 students to show up at the same place at the same time. 
We’re hoping to add a fundraiser like this to our springtime plans. Thanks!
BEN
Ben, we just did a ziti dinner last week.
Some of the questions I can’t give a concrete answer to because it will depend on how many tickets (dinners) you sell. While we did sell them at the door we had the kids basically sell them a month ahead of time so we would have a rough idea of the amount of supplies needed. We added some additional to cover those tickets sold that night.
1 pound of Mini Penne that we had fed about 4 people. Those 1 pound pasta boxes may look small in the store but remember that pasta cooks up. Everybody also got 2 large meatballs with thier pasta.
Get the water on the stove about an hour before you open up. With large pots it takes awhile to get it to boil. We run 3 to 4 pots on a rotating basis. Two are boiling on the stove, one is getting filled and placed back on the stove while the last pot is being drained. Sternos are your friend and we went through several of them. After the noodles were drained they went into the trays where the sauce was added and the ziti was kept hot until needed. At the busiest times the ziti left the trays almost immediantly, other times it sat for several minutes before being needed. The people at the door seemed to show up in waves and we’ve noticed this on several occasions. If the ziti is staying in the tray for several minutes have someone keep an eye on it, stirring it and adding sauce so it doesn’t dry out and harden. If the people wanted it dry they would’ve just eaten it right out of the box. 
We had about 7 people (adults, CT regulations/law) helping out in the kitchen. There were about a dozen students that did the serving and table clean up. Each student was in charge of 2 tables. Another set of students took and sold tickets at the door. This number is dependant on how many people show up. We have found that ziti dinners, while are a lot of work, are also one of our biggest fundraisers.
Hopefully this gives you some answers. I would say that you would definitely need more than 5 or 6 students to pull this off. You could always try inviting Rachael Ray, then that would free up the kitchen staff to help with the tables! 