It’s time again to take advantage of up to $2000 in grant money per organization, awarded through the Campus Kitchens Project (through funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service) to put toward a original,  volunteer-building MLK Day of Service project at Campus Kitchens, their community partners, and soon-to-be Campus Kitchens.

The MLK Day – or semester – of service projects through CKP exist as part of a national effort to honor Dr. King’s legacy of service by engaging youth, the elderly, and underserved populations in volunteerism with local community groups. This year’s day of service is January 17, 2011. Completed proposals are due on or before 5 p.m. EST, September 1, 2010.

To receive an MLK Day grant, applicants must demonstrate several components in the project guidelines of the attached MLK Day RFP below.

MLK Day of Service Activities may include, but are not limited to:

• Raising awareness about local hunger and hunger relief efforts such as The Campus Kitchens Project
• Food drives to provide fresh produce and frozen canned goods for CKP clients
• Special cooking delivery shifts with targeted volunteers
• Collaborating with other community-based organizations on a one day project

Looking for more information or ready to get your application started? Click on the RFP and application downloads below.

Wondering what participating in MLK Day is actually like? Take a glance at the 18 projects CKP administered last year.

Downloads:

CKP__MLK Day of Service 2011 RFP

CKP__MLK Day of Service 2011 Application

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In one week’s time, through hours of labor and a little creativity, a North Carolina church group transformed a communal garden into a true community gathering spot.

The Campus Kitchen at Wake Forest University participated in 2010’s MLK Day of Service by committing to a year-long project to build a community garden at a partner agency site: El Buen Pastor. While the garden began yielding fresh produce this Spring, it hadn’t quite yielded the community gathering activities CKWFU had hoped for. That’s where Grace Haven Baptist Fellowship came in. Their mission: build a pavilion-like structure, run a day camp, and volunteer at the Campus Kitchen – all in one week.

“One of the things we really wanted to do was facilitate the garden as more of a community space,” says 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.”

While the group of 31 middle and high school students worked alongside the men from El Buen Pastor to build an earthquake/hurricane-proof pavilion approximately 35 by 45 feet, holding 50 people, the middle and high school students also led a day camp each morning for some of the community’s younger children. The day camp focused on sustainability, with an emphasis on what partnering with the earth actually means. The group took campers through everything from recycling, to how to weed in the garden, to introducing children to a birds of prey rescuer.

“With the wildlife rescuer, you would have thought there was a celebrity in the room,” says Graves. “All eyes were fixed on her.”

In the afternoons, the group rotated to work for the Campus Kitchen. While only those 18 plus were allowed to work in the kitchen during the meal preparation shift, the rest of the group worked in the Campus Kitchen garden and participated in daily Fresh Market produce pickups.

“Fresh Market gave them a really good visual image of food waste and what is considered trash and yet still edible,” says Graves. “I think that it was a really good, teachable moment.”

Thanks to cooperation and university support (the church group received a free dinner, reduced pricing on group housing, and entertainment), the group completed work on the structure early and had extra materials, so they decided to build a fence around the MLK garden to help keep out pests. And while El Buen Pastor gained something extra, the service group gained more than they planned for too.

“The group talked about food and what gets thrown away,” says Graves. “They learned things like how do you curb what you put on your plate and eat in a responsible way.” Graves added that the language barrier – especially that with the younger kids at El Buen Pastor – was a good challenge for the group to overcome.

On the final day of the service week, the two groups switched roles, this time with El Buen Pastor serving Grace Baptist. The church group worked a half day, then went to Hanging Rock State Park, with a home-cooked lunch of thanks from the community.

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Volunteering is undergoing its greatest spike in six years, up 1.6 million new Americans over last year, according to the Corporation for National & Community Service’s report released today, June 15.

The annual Volunteering in America report found that more than 63.4 million Americans volunteered for more than 8.1 billion hours of volunteer service, saving the United States an estimated $169 billion.

The report comes at a fitting time for Campus Kitchens, as this past year, The Campus Kitchen Projects volunteer force grew more than ever with the addition of six new kitchens at the start of the Spring 2010 semester. The report assessed Americans aged 16 and older.

Some other notable findings in the Volunteering in America Report:

• Minneapolis-St. Paul, where the Campus Kitchen at Augsburg College is located, ranked number one among large cities in rate of citizens volunteering.
• Women again volunteered at a higher rate than men.
• Working mothers have the highest volunteer rate among women.
• Factors that lower volunteer rates: multi-unit housing, poverty rates, longer commuting times.

And for those looking to volunteer beyond the Campus Kitchen, or looking for a Campus Kitchen in the area, don’t forget the Corporation launched a web site, Serve.gov, last summer, linking volunteers to opportunities in their zip codes.

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The Virtually Delicious program takes place in collaboration with The Center/ El Centro, an after school program for first through eighth graders. The series of lessons brought together 11 middle-school students and eight student volunteers from Gettysburg College, mostly health science majors. The plan: teach students both technological capabilities and nutrition education using Virtually Delicious programming like building healthy food pyramids online.

Participants feasted on a dinner full of local foods

To polish off months of activities, the Campus Kitchen at Gettysburg College held a local foods dinner in honor of the hard work by the students. Activities began with a potluck dinner made with delicious, local foods.

Students engage in Virtually Delicious presentations

Students then took the stage and presented posters they made about what they learned from different lessons. After that, Gettysburg Campus Kitchen students played Podcasts that children recorded as part of their Virtually Delicious program.  While the Podcasts were simple – each student told the audience his/her name, grade, favorite lesson, and something he/she learned – they allowed the children to develop the technological skill, one of many they learned along the way.

Students plant their own seeds

As the night wound down, participants retreated to several tables set up throughout the room with different children’s activities.  Vo-tech students helped kids make fruit kabobs, another table required participants to match a vegetable with a seed, and children also had the opportunity to plant their very own seeds in personal cups.

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With the first signs of Spring, students from the Campus Kitchen at Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn. celebrated by teaming up with Anthropology and Sociology majors, as well as the Lee University soccer team to host a community block party for residents they rarely get to connect with while living on campus.

Using funds from their MLK Semester of Service Grant, the kitchen put to action their Mega Meals program, inviting families living near Green Drive to a day filled with games, soccer, bubble-blowing, face-painting, and nutritious food.

The Sociology and Anthropology students visited homes and interviewed parents and families prior to the block party to determine what activities to put on for the community. After their home visits, many of the students were inspired to continue helping the Green Drive community beyond their school requirements.

Other students helped local children explore their creative abilities through chalking the sidewalk and face painting. The young and old alike jumped into the soccer tournament hosted by Lee’s team, and the Campus Kitchen anchored the day’s activity with a hearty meal of lasagna – 64 servings in total.

The Campus Kitchen at Lee University plans to continue its Mega Meals program, serving the community at Green Drive using the diverse skills of students.

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The first Virtually Delicious lesson with local youth from The Center/El Centro, an after school program for children in first through eighth grades, took place at the end of February. The program brought together 11 middle-school students and eight student volunteers from Gettysburg College.  Most of the Gettysburg College volunteers were health science majors and used the opportunity to explain nutrition in detail with the middle school students.

The children began their day of combined nutrition and computer education by learning how to best navigate the Internet.  Among the things they learned:  searches need to be as specific as possible in order to yield the results you are looking for.  They took the lesson one step further and embarked on an online scavenger hunt, looking for things like the amount of calories in a slice of cheese pizza and the serving size for one serving of pasta.

After they completed all tasks, the middle school students navigated the MyPyramid for Kids website.  Each student received a blank MyPyramid to color according to the images they found on Google images.  Next, they utilized the “MyPyramid Plan” feature on the website to determine the amounts of each food group they needed.  Each student input his/her age, sex, height, and weight.  Based on the data, the program calculated a personalized pyramid.  The students filled in the pyramids with the recommendations specific to them.

After this activity the kids played the “MyPyramid Blast Off” game.  The game consists of adding food as fuel to a rocket ship until it has enough fuel from each food group.  Once this is achieved, the rocket blasts off to indicate successful completion!

The Virtually Delicious Program is part of continuing community partnership with The Center/El Centro and the Campus Kitchen at Gettysburg College, as well as a piece of CKGC’s MLK Semester of Service. Below, Megan describes a service day completed in lead-up to the Virtually Delicious kick-off.

Students from The Center/El Centro and Gettysburg College assembled on Friday, February 19 to complete a Day of Service at Everblossom Farm. They dug right in, working to maintain the crops in the greenhouse and preparing the ground for additional growing.  It was awesome to see just how many plants were growing in the greenhouse in the winter.  The kids were able to identify and taste several vegetables, including: spinach, peas, spring mix greens, and kale.  Everyone was very surprised at how warm it was in the greenhouse.  Even though it was in the 30s outside, with about a foot of snow on the ground, it was at least 80 degrees inside the greenhouse and everyone kept taking off more clothing as they did more work.

After a successful service project it was time to go home.  The kids were amazed by the cows and we spent the end of our time at the farm watching them and trying to get them to come near us.

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These pictures come from a youth program, a high school, a service center, a campus kitchen, and more. Many just laid down their first layer of paint, packed their first meals, and baked their first batch of cookies. Stay tuned for more!

Wondering where these projects took place?

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Curious about how they gathered volunteers this past MLK Day?

Here’s a quick look at what goes on, with inspiration (we hope) for volunteers at your Campus Kitchen.

In this video:
Cindy Slavantis, state office manager at The Corporation for Community and National Service, and daughter Julia

Carol and Gagan, also of The Corporation for Community and National Service

Kristian Gray of The Collegiate Leadership Program High School

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Below is a selection of pictures from the afternoon shift, when volunteers from Serve D.C., The Friendship Collegiate High School Leadership Program, Culinary Job Training students (on their second day of class!), and DCCK staff came together to make hunger relief happen. Enjoy!

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