News

A New Group of AmeriCorps Leaders Step up to Feed

Written by Jasmine Touton Monday, 23 August 2010 10:11

Hanging a chef’s hat for a year-long term as AmeriCorps VISTAs at Campus Kitchens is about more than just service for four new leaders. It’s about providing something to students that will change their lives.

“I really wanted to have an impact, and not just on the community,” said Katherine Winn of the Campus Kitchen at East Carolina University. “It’s that whole, I can do one thing to make a difference. Or, I can work with students, and change people’s lives for a lifetime.”

While the four new AmeriCorps VISTAs have similar reasons why they joined the program, they all bring different skills to their posts, and carry different visions for where they’d like to see their programs at the end of their year of service.

Amy Bachman will lead the Campus Kitchen at Johns Hopkins University, but she’s no stranger to the tireless work that goes into Campus Kitchen shifts. She first volunteered with the Campus Kitchen at Wake Forest University as a Sophomore, after attending a Spring Break trip to New Orleans, led by the then Campus Kitchen AmeriCorps VISTA at Wake Forest, Jen Baron.

“We talked a lot of Campus Kitchens, but also DC Central Kitchen and Robert Egger,” said Amy Bachman. “She told me about internships at DCCK, so I got really interested and applied. I loved the experience so much and enjoyed working with everyone involved with DCCK, that when I got back to Wake … I asked if I could be on the leadership team.”

Hungry for Justice: CKP's Conference Heads to Baylor University

Written by Jasmine Touton Monday, 23 August 2010 09:53

This October, as students settle into their Fall semester of coursework, 500 participants from across the United States will descend on Waco, Texas to attend and interact with a collaboration of efforts from local and national hunger relief communities.

The Campus Kitchens Project will share its annual conference (October 8 to 10) with Baylor University’s Poverty Summit, which brings the student and community populations closer to problems and solutions surrounding poverty.

Waco is the fifth poorest city in Texas, so the issues surrounding poverty – homelessness, trafficking, hunger – are a central focus of Baylor University’s student population and administration. Amanda Allen, who is helping plan the joint effort, says the Vice President of Baylor University views the conference as one of two signature events at the largest Baptist University in the world. He’s even sent letters to Vice Presidents of other major universities, inviting them to attend.

“It will be good just to have an event this large on campus, and have prominent speakers so the university community sees this as a worthwhile thing to talk about,” said Allen. “It’s a step in the right direction for Waco.”

The conference, titled Hungry for Justice: Social, Economic, Environmental will also draw a diverse population, from dozens of Campus Kitchen leaders to local hunger leaders, farmers, and professors.

Turning a New Menu Page on Culinary Job Training

Written by Jasmine Touton Monday, 23 August 2010 09:41

One resident of Peter and Paul Community Services in St. Louis first tested her cooking chops when she took over breakfast and lunch cooking duties to serve others in her shelter.

This chosen interest in food would soon lead her to the Culinary Job Training program led by the Campus Kitchen at St. Louis Unviersity where she’d study restaurant guidelines, tour Whole Foods Market, lead her own cooking shift, and leave with her very own chef’s jacket – prepped to conquer the food service industry when she chose to leave Peter and Paul.

Her story is not unlike dozens of culinary job training graduates that have passed through the doors of the Campus Kitchen at St. Louis University in the nine years since the Campus Kitchen has offered the program, which is modeled after parent organization DC Central Kitchen’s Culinary Job Training curriculum. This year, a new emphasis on passing the Restaurant Association’s ServSafe exam and giving job training students more practical experience could provide participants an even better edge on gaining employment after graduation.

Coordinaor Jenny Bird said the program used to follow an eight-week path, but she’s shaved those weeks down to six, reduced the class size, and restructured the curriculum to give students even more of a chance to succeed. She kicked off the class with exam training for ServSafe, which is the National Restaurant Association’s certification for food safety, before ever turning on a burner.

Campus Kitchens Earn Top Sustainability Recognition

Written by Jasmine Touton Monday, 16 August 2010 09:58

What makes a university ‘cool’? According to Sierra magazine’s analysis of higher education institutions last August, implementing a Campus Kitchen helps.

The University of Vermont earned Sierra’s distinction as the fourth out of their “10 Coolest Schools” list (this year it ranks 17 of 100) for its commitment to the environment. Sierra magazine editors came up with a rating system based on efficiency, academics, administration and purchasing, and energy to determine the score.

Within the rating system, the University of Vermont scored well, but it was the bonus points the magazine awarded that won the college the fourth highest ranking. Among reasons why UVM received bonus points for its sustainable projects: its Clean Energy Fund, the university’s Sustainable Food Working Group, and The Campus Kitchens Project.

A growing number of schools that house Campus Kitchens are gaining recognition and adding awards to their university display cases, due in part the student-led hunger relief effort on campus.

This month, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality awarded state environmental distinction (Exemplary Environmental Enterprise or E3) to its first university in the state: the University of Virginia. While the E3 includes many city public works and resource-focused Virginia businesses, few entities as large as the University of Virginia are included on the list.

Campus Kitchen turns MLK Garden into Community Gathering Spot

Written by Jasmine Touton Tuesday, 20 July 2010 11:22

On a recent Monday, middle and high school students from a church two hours away sat down to a welcome feast with a Latino community services center and partner to the Campus Kitchen at Wake Forest University.

One week later the group departed, leaving behind some simple, but important improvements. Beyond the compost bin and protective garden fence, the true focus of the service week, a 35 by 45-foot pavilion built to hold 50 people, stood in the El Buen Pastor grounds as a new outdoor classroom and testament to how far a little teamwork can go.

“One of the things we really wanted to do was make the garden more of a community space,” said Shelley Graves, Campus Kitchen coordinator. “We wanted to encourage El Buen Pastor’s members to cook dinner, grill out, do weeding or watering, harvest together, and lay the harvest in the shade to divide up.”

What the group from Grace Haven Baptist Church didn’t expect: the week of service for the El Buen Pastor quickly turned into a week of working alongside them, with skilled construction workers from the community pitching in, in a tag team effort to build the structure.

Farmer's Markets Bring Campus Kitchens Closer to the Community

Written by Jasmine Touton Tuesday, 20 July 2010 11:11

Volunteers at the Campus Kitchen at Augsburg College (CKAC) in Minneapolis didn’t always have the fresh, local produce they wanted to incorporate into meals and provide to local food banks - so they created their own source for high quality vegetables, and with it, a little economic empowerment.

The Campus Kitchen tested the waters of an on-campus farmer’s market program last summer, and has a few years experience at running its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. With the start of the farmer’s market season at the end of June, this summer promises more donations and economic opportunity for the Minneapolis community as programs expand to connect the campus community with something larger.

CKAC Coordinator Brian Noy said the farmer’s market project began as an offshoot of the one he helped start with a community partner, the Brian Coyle Community Center. That site, together with the on-campus market, makes up the West Bank Farmer’s Markets.

“The Brian Coyle Center is right against the project high rises that hold the majority of the center’s population,” said Noy. “The Brian Coyle customers are mostly Somalians from that neighborhood, whereas the on-campus market is mostly faculty and students. But we do distribute leaflets and fliers to let everyone know about both locations.”