Fifteen pounds of pasta, 8.5 pounds of Ragu pasta sauce, six dozen rolls and nine cans of green beans later, I’ve marked the next item off of my list: volunteer with a new charity.

The charity I chose was the Ronald McDonald House at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Every night, different groups cook dinner for the 60(ish) residents at the house.

On the menu: a pasta bar. Chef Aly, Chef Emily and Chef Tanner prepared a feast of:

• Spaghetti
• Gluten-free spaghetti
• Penne pasta
• Bow-tie pasta
• My special spaghetti sauce
• Emily’s special chicken spaghetti sauce
• Aly’s special creamy tomato and spinach sauce
• Green beans
• Rolls
• Brownies

Armed with freshly-embroidered custom chef coats and puffy hats, we got to work.

Throughout the course of three hours, we drug out every pot in the Ronald McDonald House, spilled minced onions all over the counter (well, one of us did), somehow lost two dozen rolls, stressed about running out of time and ran around like mad people. When it was all said and done, we had approximately 8 million noodles (and we didn’t even cook the fettuccini), not quite 60 people eating and a couple hundred photos with the selfie stick.

Lessons learned for next time:

• Start earlier.
• Cook less food.
• Let the brownies cool longer.
• Don’t use Ragu.
• Don’t leave Aly in charge of anything that might spill.

Cooking for 60 people was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we were able to help out those families who are in a tough spot right now. I’m also excited about the new Ronald McDonald House that’s opening in November. It’s just down the street from the current one, and having been in the current house, it’s a much-needed and much-anticipated upgrade.

The new house will give each room a private bathroom, rather than community bathrooms like you’d find in an old college dorm. It’ll feature a state-of-the-art, much bigger kitchen and dining room that will actually accommodate everybody in the house, rather than 3 separate, tiny kitchens and the residents having to take shifts for dinner every night.

We’ll definitely be back to cook again!