Come to the Campus Kitchen at University of Vermont for a tour of operations, and leave with a tour of the sustainable, local movement to feed in Burlington, Vermont.

The coordinators at CKUVM aren’t confused; it’s just that the Campus Kitchen has done such a good job integrating themselves into the community, the hunger relief efforts in Burlington and by CKUVM are the same.

AmeriCorps *VISTA Coordinator “Mama” Sarah Heim has integrated herself into the food culture of the community.  She shops at the local food co-op where customers can spoon fresh, natural almond butter into jars.  Her time spent perusing local foods at the co-op informs the creative food programming she offers to forge a connection between students and where their food comes from. “Mama” Sarah holds several yogurt culture growing and butter-making workshops for Campus Kitchen students throughout the year.

fill your own olive oil at the Burlington Co-op

Head down the road from the co-op to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, and witness where the majority of cooking operations by the Campus Kitchen take place. The local food bank, soup kitchen, and largest direct service emergency food provider in Vermont (they serve one hot meal per day) hosts CKUVM students weekly as they cook for and serve food bank customers. CKUVM students helped paint murals in the community dining area and are free to use a range of professional cookware in the newly outfitted kitchen. The partnership between the Campus Kitchen and the Food Shelf recently brought both organizations a shared $25,000 in nutrition education funding through the Newman’s Own  Campus Community Service Challenge.

A range of tools to use for cooking at Chittenden

Professional Grade Ovens at Chittenden

Closer to campus, the Intervale Center anchors the Burlington agricultural community, and the majority of fresh produce that CKUVM students glean, can, freeze, and preserve during Vermont’s plentiful summer months. The Intervale Center preserves and manages 350 acres of land in Burlington to provide depth to the amount of sustainable, local foods the community can access by providing plots for startup farms. A heaping compost project sits at one end of the farm, but for other unused produce that cannot be sold before going bad, the project invites the Campus Kitchen to glean excess.

Heim says the kitchen gets a wider variety of produce than she could ever imagine from Intervale, as she carries a flat of applesauce jars (canned the past summer) into the Campus Kitchen office. Their students are finishing a prep shift for tomorrow’s Chittenden Food Shelf service. They are devising a cobbler-like dessert using applesauce, frozen fruit, jam, oats, butter and sugar. Many of the non-perishables are donated from UVM dining services, Sodexo, which is also a major donor to The Campus Kitchens Project. Students pack freezer bags with necessary ingredients and a recipe to guide tomorrow’s volunteers.

CKUVM keeps a stockpile of frozen goods in the Sodexo freezers

UVM students finish off their prep shift

Just up the hill from the kitchen, the university’s Davis Center – an environmentally-centered student union with a strong message of social justice – will house the new office of the Campus Kitchen, helping CKUVM become a fixture in a community where its already so deeply saturated.

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