MLK Day of Service Sparks More Campus Kitchen Openings

This Martin Luther King, Jr. Service Day, under the guidance of The Campus Kitchens Project, 18 organizations from Nebraska to Pennsylvania warmed their ovens for semester-long service projects. Among them are two student groups on the verge of serving their first meals out of their own campus kitchens.

Staff and 25 student volunteers at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., will use the “Fortnight of Peace,” the time between MLK Day and Ghandi’s birthday, to host local farmers, food pantries, and community organizations for a food fair, open house and community dinner on January 28.

“We’ve done MLK activities on campus before, but it was more of a lecture or event,” said Stacey Sommerfield, director of the David Garner Center for Collegiate Volunteerism. “We were inspired to use the lessons of MLK day to make a more sustainable program.”

Five hundred miles away, in Bethesda, Md., another school tested its volunteer force for the introduction of its own campus kitchen. Staff and students at St. Andrews Episcopal High School pledged to help the homeless in Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Md., organizing a food drive with an expected 6000 cans to fill their food pantry.

For MLK Day, St. Andrews students used donations from the food drive – including a generous in-kind from Marriott International - to prepare 150 meals. From MLK Day forward, the school will send students to serve on a weekly basis as part of a pilot project preceding the opening of the Campus Kitchen at St. Andrews.

The University of Massachusetts at Boston, a new campus kitchens national partner, will also begin operations in honor of MLK Day in early February. Another six campus kitchens are committing to semesters of service in addition to their normal meal programs.

For the second consecutive year, thanks to a grant from The Corporation for National & Community Service, The Campus Kitchens Project used its service leadership to promote volunteer recruitment and campus service learning, while jump-starting new campus kitchen operations.

The result of months of planning, sub-granting, and mobilization across the country: over 900 volunteers and 12,000 meals served.