Our story started when one of our team members saw a delicious-looking chicken sandwich on Rachel’s Eats Instagram with the label, “Chicken Sandwich Pop-Up.” While doing the backgrounder, I researched related topics such as pop-up shops and student businesses to give the story writer Haylee Banta a springboard to jump off when starting to write the article. I found that Mustang News had previously done a story on a group of Cal Poly students that created original art, which they sold and donated the proceeds to various nonprofits.
We used this article and a few others to research the most exciting aspects of these student business stories. Additionally, we checked out the Rachel’s Eats website and saw that Rachel’s passion for cooking goes far beyond her pop-up events.
Rachel Castellino is a second-year statistics major at Cal Poly who has hosted several food pop-ups throughout this year. She runs these pop-up events to feed her passion for cooking. Although, Castellino loves school and is a self-proclaimed “nerd,” she has chosen to pursue her culinary interests while juggling classes, clubs and her job.
“In the past three months, I have learned that college is more than a degree and grades and to stop living for other people or expectations or practicality,” Castellino said.
Our team chose this story after team member Jennifer Newton suggested it because not only is the concept of a pop-up shop exciting, she also noted that Castellino donates her proceeds to causes that are important to her. Her latest proceeds from her chicken sandwich pop-up event were donated to anti-Asain American hate organizations.
Given Castellino’s busy schedule, Newton said she struggled to find a time to film Castellino making the chicken sandwiches for the audiovisual portion of the story.
“Creating this story has been equally exciting and challenging,” Newton said. “At times, I would be given different responses of when I could film. At one point, I could go in to film, then a few hours later I couldn’t film at all, and a few hours later, when I was about to drive home, I was told I could film the pop-up. It was a crazy few days, but overall I think the footage I got was really nice and is going to compliment the other components nicely.”
For the interactive portions of this story, team member Lauren Walike had an idea to create a visual graphic out of the chicken sandwich that Castellino was selling at her pop-up. Walike signed up for the pop-up event and attended to take pictures and try the chicken sandwich.
“My process for this project was to take photos that made the viewer feel like they were there eating the sandwich,” Walike said. “I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like, and then when I got there, I adapted to the aesthetic of the place I was in but still executed my vision for it. For the visual graphic, I wanted to create something informative that was also visually appealing. Until I took the photos, I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Then I had the idea to use the photo for the base of the graphic and went from there.”
Banta and Newton interviewed Castellino before her pop-up event. Along with two other interviews that Banta did with Castellino’s old partner Elan Valdez-Kaminsky and her new partner Kin Coffee, where she hosted her pop-up event.
“I had a lot of fun writing this story and loved hearing about Rachel’s story,” Banta said. “The hardest part of writing the story was having sources respond, but it all came together in the end.”
This story was fun for our team because it showcases the amazing talent of a young Cal Poly student who is chasing her passion and finding a unique and creative way to benefit not only the community but the causes she cares most about.