Dining Hall Cook Feeds Campus Kitchen's Soul

Sharon Hope has a sixth sense. She can enter a food pantry, spy any ingredient, and turn it into something delicious for the meal recipients at the Campus Kitchen at Marquette University.

“I love going to the food pantry so I can scour anything and everything to make sure it’s the best we have,” said Hope. “It makes my mind go a million miles a minute.”

For almost eight years since the Campus Kitchen began rescuing unused food from the Marquette University dining halls Hope has lent her sixth sense, cooking knowledge, and passion to feed. During those years, the careful cook progressed from simply wrapping up the meals she sent over to the Campus Kitchen to teaching students basic kitchen tricks and leading culinary job training lessons.

“I don’t think of it as donating or volunteering, I just think of it as helping somebody out,” said Hope while breaking from baking a Campus Kitchen mac and cheese dish with a variety of cheeses. Hope takes summers off from the dining halls and spends three days a week in the kitchen with student volunteers.

Since she was a little girl, Hope said she had a passion for cooking. After 24 years working with Marquette University, she still views her lot in life as making sure people – whether students, homeless, or patients at the children hospital – eat.

“One bagel can make the difference of whether someone eats that day or not,” said Hope. “When they eat they can do other things like find a job, or they can get out of a horrible situation.”

Hope strives to expose students to inventive recipes tailored to using up the last ingredients too. Her favorite: Vietnamese barbeque sauce made from hot sauce, grape jelly, and a little bit of wine or beer to glaze meat with.

“I do make you eat,” said Hope.