One of the best things about living and working in Athens and the University of Georgia community is the vast web of relationships and connections available to you. If you have a project idea you want to make happen or even an issue to iron out, there is almost definitely a department, organization, student group, or professor that has the resource you need. All you have to do is simply reach out.
While enrolled in a Women’s Studies Service-Learning class this past spring, I got the opportunity to help develop a project that will eventually, after stacks of applications and paperwork, be established as an official Campus Kitchen. The Campus Kitchens Project, a national nonprofit organization, is geared towards combining the ingenuity of college students with hunger needs in their community via unused food in their on-campus dining halls and local food establishments. However, until it acquires its national affiliation, the UGA organization is referred to as the Campus-Community Kitchen.
Typically, Campus Kitchens Projects across the country partner with their schools’ food services programs to collect excess dining hall food and then use the kitchens after hours for sorting and cooking. They then deliver the prepared foods that would be otherwise thrown out to community residents in need. However, since UGA Food Services already donates its excess food to another local nonprofit, the student group developing the Campus-Community Kitchen chose to pursue the many other sources of food waste to close in on the gap in hunger in Athens-Clarke County.
At UGA, the Campus-Community Kitchen partners with the Athens Community Council on Aging’s Grandparents Raising Grandchildren program. In a survey administered to program members, 78% of respondents indicated that they did not have enough food most of the time. Therefore, the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren program seemed a perfect fit for the Campus-Community Kitchen.
Furthermore, Athens-Clarke County has the highest rate of poverty of any county in the United States with at least one-hundred thousand residents. The 21% food insecurity rate in Athens-Clarke County is significantly higher than the 16.6% national rate; moreover, Georgia is ranked 6th in the nation for senior hunger. As defined by the USDA, food insecurity includes the increased intake of foods of reduced nutritious value, variety, or desirability, like fast food or highly processed foods instead of fresh fruits and vegetables and lean protein. In addition, it could also include less than adequate overall food intake.
And then an opportunity for a unique relationship formed. Students working on development of the Campus Kitchens Project approached the campus community garden (UGArden) leaders about the possibility of a partnership. Since UGArden was already committing their excess produce to the Athens Area Food Bank, the partnership with Campus Kitchens only seemed natural. Once a month, UGArden would harvest enough produce for the number of families that Campus Kitchens would be delivering to, typically around fifteen.
UGArden is the only student-run cooperative CSA (community-supported agriculture) vegetable garden on the UGA campus. Centered on sustainable agriculture and building community, students and other community members plant, weed, and harvest produce biweekly.
Furthermore, UGArden’s produce donations to the Food Bank are expected to incorporate into a credit program for Campus-Community Kitchen. So in return for UGArden produce, the Campus-Community Kitchen will be able to purchase other staple items from the Food Bank that they were not able to receive from the current sources. So far this summer, Campus Kitchens has banked 283 pounds of produce from UGArden that they may be able to use for other items.
UGA’s project also collects food that would be otherwise wasted from various local grocery stores, restaurants, and during the school year, fraternity and sorority houses. With summer in session and school out, the Campus-Community Kitchen has shifted from prepared meals to mostly produce from UGAarden accompanied by easy vegetable recipes as well as other pre-prepared bread and treats from local restaurants.
Since the project’s inaugural three-day collection, preparation, and delivery process the week of March 28, 2011, the program revved up to a bimonthly delivery in June. Plans are in the works to making the deliveries weekly and ultimately a few times per week. The Campus-Community Kitchen’s leadership is in the process of submitting the final portion of the application at some point this week and hope to be affiliated as an official Campus Kitchen by the Fall 2011 semester.
This week, Campus Kitchens will be delivering jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, squash, and zucchini to Campus Kitchen families. UGArden also had extra tomato and pepper plants which were delivered to Campus-Community Kitchen food recipients who indicated they would like to raise some of their own produce. And thus a mutually beneficial, tummy-filling, and community-strengthening partnership was formed.
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