Hershey’s Trip Part 3

Today I’m going to wrap up my recap of my trip to Hershey’s. In case you missed it, I posted about Day 1 and the first part of Day 2 a while ago. Every time I sat down to write this post, I just couldn’t find the words. Call it writer’s block or whatever, but I finally carved out some time to sit down and finish up the recap of my trip to Hershey’s.

After we finished our chocolate lunch, we headed over to the test kitchens. First we got to meet some of the bakers who work in the test kitchens. It was really interesting for me to learn about their backgrounds and how they all go jobs testing recipes for Hershey’s.

We had the opportunity to ask any questions we had and then we broke up into small groups. I teamed up with Caryn from Rockin’ Mama and Patsy from Consumer Queen. We headed off to our assigned test kitchen to bake a batch of cookies. We made the Triple Chocolate Cookies. It was a lot of fun baking together and our cookies came out amazingly! While we were baking, we were chatting it up, posing for photos, and tasting some of the cookies that had already been baked.

Next we all met in a conference room to learn about the Milton Hershey School. Children from all over the country go to the MHS to get an education that they might not have been able to get otherwise. The students live on site in large houses with children of their same age group. The school does so many amazing things for these students, I can’t possibly talk about all of it here. If you would like more information, definitely check out their website.

Now that we had freshly baked cookies in our possession, it was time to go to one of the family homes to meet some of the students of MHS. Our team met with a bunch of girls in the 3rd to 5th grade levels. We enjoyed a pizza dinner with them, got a tour of their house, learned all about the chores they each do, and finally got ready for our cookie swap. We piled into cars and headed over to one of the houses of boys to swap and decorate cookies.

Talking with the house parents was an amazing experience. The house parents are married couples who’s full time job is to take care of their students. The kind of people who give their lives like that are just amazing.

The next morning, we were all getting ready to head home, but for one last treat, we all were able to choose a spa treatment at the Chocolate Spa. I decided to get a treatment I had never had before, the Chocolate Fondue Wrap. After being exfoliated from head to toe, I was lathered in warm chocolate fondue and then wrapped up like a burrito. It was one of the most relaxing hours of my life and I would highly recommend it!

After my spa treatment, I had a few minutes to hit up the shops in the hotel before catching a shuttle back to the airport. I can’t believe all the activities (and all the chocolate) they crammed into 3 days at Hershey’s, but it was definitely one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. Thanks again Hershey’s for whisking me away for a few days.