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Campus Kitchens are no stranger to providing comfort through a home-cooked meal or companionship.

In the wake of the recent Texas wildfires that resulted in the loss of 1554 homes in Balstrop County, the Campus Kitchen at Baylor University is reaching out to provide a different kind of comfort: stuffed bears.

The Bears2Bears project, sponsored by the Campus Kitchen, is looking to collect 1000 Teddy bears (bears are also the unviersity’s mascot) to give out to children who lost all of their belongings. Furry donations can be made to the Service Learning Office in the Bill Daniels Student Center on the Baylor Campus.

Rosemary Towsend, director of service and community partnerships at Baylor, got the project off the ground when an email from a friend in Balstrop County passed along a list for urgent donations needs – including toys.

While other organizations pitched in to fill immediate physical needs of victims, the Campus Kitchen worked to fill emotional ones.

The 75 percent contained fire is still listed as active. The Campus Kitchen will continue to collect bear donations until October 14.

“Thank you for helping us give the children who lost their homes something warm and fuzzy, a Teddy Bear, to hold on to during a really scary time in their lives,” Towsend wrote in an email.

Those who wish to make a financial donation to the project can send checks to:

Campus Kitchen At Baylor University

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Communities in New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Maryland will receive the grants, which fund the development and implementation of plans expanding access to healthy food through increased participation in federal nutrition programs and other creative initiatives.

In six of those states, Campus Kitchens craft their own creative initiatives to improve access to healthy foods. And, using the manpower of student volunteers and repurposed resources (kitchen space and donated food), they execute these programs at a very low cost.

Just what are Campus Kitchens doing in comparison to the USDA’s most recent grant efforts? Below are some examples.

• Maryland Governor’s Office for Children, Baltimore, Md., $923,812; This project will help Maryland increase participation in the National School Breakfast Program, the Summer Food Service Program that provides meals to hungry kids in the summer, and improve access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The Campus Kitchens Project has two campuses in Maryland: Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland Eastern Shore at Shady Grove. At Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, student volunteers run Friday Healthy Cooking classes for a local middle school. While it’s not breakfast every day, two graduate public health students help lead the classes, which provide recipes and nutrition education. Recently, students learned of the health benefits from bananas by making banana muffins and peanut butter banana smoothies. Read more here.

• Centro del Obrero Fronterizo, Inc., El Paso, Texas, $110,065; This project will help South Central El Paso administer a culturally relevant nutrition education campaign for food service workers and families, strengthen partnerships and coordination among organizations, and help increase access to fresh, affordable foods for families in need.

The Campus Kitchen at Baylor University in Waco, Texas saw an opportunity to strengthen community relationships througha community garden, and in January they broke ground on the project. Garden organizers will plant English peas, spinach, radish, and kale among other veggies to prep their garden for its main purpose: nutrition education. Among other organizations, Waco Arts Initiative will work with the Campus Kitchen to connect underprivileged youth to hands-on learning activities in the garden. The Campus Kitchen will in turn receive most of the garden’s yield. Read more here.

• United Way of King County, Seattle, Wash., $987,380; This project will focus on initiatives described in the Hunger Relief Now! Plan, and seeks to reduce hunger among low-income children, senior citizens, immigrants, and refugees.

  

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Every week, the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. holds an outreach dinner at a local church to bring the community together and help combat hunger. The dinner gives the coordinator the opportunity to provide information about other social services in the community, like bus passes and library hours. Clients at the dinner come from a range backgrounds, and many stay after the dinner to help clean up. Read more here.

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The Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga University walloped their turkey count from last year, accumulating nearly 150 turkeys to feed Spokane, Washington residents.

In the peak of a regional snowstorm, the Campus Kitchen at Minnesota State University, Mankato, successfully delivered hand-made greeting cards with grocery bags full of all the Thanksgiving fixings.

At the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, the Campus Kitchen connected with five non-traditional student families to prepare entire Thanksgiving meals with all of the trimmings for busy single parents to heat and serve.

For their first-ever Turkeypalooza, the Campus Kitchen at University of Massachusetts Boston pulled off a successful “Take your Turkey to Work Day”.

The Campus Kitchen at Washington and Lee fed clients of all ages and backgrounds in honor of Turkey Day, including the Rockbridge Area Occupational Center, an organization that works with outside agencies to provide center-based employment for people with disabilities.

View more pictures below:

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Local news coverage of Hungry for Justice: Social, Economic, Environmental

The Campus Kitchens Project national office team arrived home Sunday, October 10 from three whirlwind days at Hungry for Justice: Social, Economic, Environmental in Waco, TX bearing new vintage boots, belt buckles – and a better understanding what gets the national network of Campus Kitchens fired up, cooking, and serving their communities.

The packed-full days of sustainable gear (think awesome Kianga Project bracelets and recycled binders), networking, and the cross-pollination of knowledge left all participants with a few more sustainable seeds of ideas. As many told us in the closing remarks; they can’t wait to go back to their Campus Kitchens or hometowns, plant them, and see what grows.

More than ever before, conference participants helped with covering the conference through various e-tools, and crowd-sourced perspectives on The Poverty Summit we would have never caught ourselves.

The Campus Kitchens Project blog will soon host a media page from the conference with pictures, videos, links, and other resources for participants to continue connections, and watch their ideas flourish.

Keep things flowing until then by reading through more than 65 tweets generated during the conference in conversation #HungryforJustice. Then get a taste of some of the great crowd-sourced coverage by viewing the pictures and video below.

Kyle Hinch, AmeriCorps VISTA at the Campus Kitchen at Lee University, brought his tireless excitement for expansion of programs with his Campus Kitchen to the conference and presented about Lee University’s on-campus food bank.

CKBU helped those Hungry for Justice by delivering nearly 300 boxed lunches leftover from two days of sessions to The Salvation Army

Juliette Rorie from the Campus Kitchen at UMass Boston tells us why the human trafficking session enlightened her about what’s being done – not just in big cities, but way down in Texas.

A look inside a Breakout Session at Hungry for Justice

Mo from the Campus Kitchen at Augsburg College came to present on her on-campus cooking classes, and left with new ideas to implement at her Campus Kitchen.

View of the panel discussion at Hungry for Justice

Stay-tuned for more coverage – or catch more on our USTREAM Channel

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The Hungry for Justice: Social, Economic, Environmental UStream channel will kick off  Friday, October 8 at 10:05 a.m. with Judge Kenneth Starr, President of Baylor University’s opening remarks to open the Poverty Summit. From there we will provide you select coverage of different conference events: various breakout sessions, keynote speeches including Robert Egger of DC Central Kitchen, and student testimonial following powerful sessions like human trafficking.

Take it a step further and participate! Your tweets will be broadcast on the Ustream channel and also show up on the Baylor University Poverty Summit web site if you use the hashtag #HungryforJustice. Or – participate in the live chat below!

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As we clarify details of the conference, we will post information here. For those who have not yet seen it, here is the latest (and still tentative) schedule of events for what’s shaping up to be the most active and diverse (think documentary screenings, a Justice Exhibit, and service opportunities) conference yet.

October 8-10, 2010

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

Friday, October 8

10:00AM           Registration Opens

12:00PM           Boxed Lunch, Welcome: Judge Kenneth Starr, President of Baylor University

1:30 PM            Hands On Network/Point of Light Breakout session

2:30PM             CKP Breakout 2

3:30PM             CKP Breakout 3

4:30PM             CKP Breakout 4

5:30PM             CKP Breakout 5

7:00PM             Dessert Reception, Keynote: Robert Egger, Founder and President of DC Central Kitchen and Campus Kitchens Project (confirmed)

8:00PM             Justice Exhibition Opens

Saturday, October 9

9:00AM                        Keynote: Shannon Sedgwick Davis (confirmed)

10:00AM           Breakout Session 1

11:00AM           Breakout Session 2

12:00PM           Boxed lunch and Hunger Panel Discussion

1:30PM             Breakout Session 3

3:00PM             Off-Campus Service:

• World Hunger Farm, Inc.
• Caritas
• Salvation Army
• Urban Gardening Coalition

6:00PM             World Hunger Educational Banquet: Jimmy and Janet Dorrell, Mission Waco

8:30PM             Documentary on Fountain Mall- Lunch Line

Sunday, October 10

9:30AM                       Closing Keynote: Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (invited)

11:00AM                     Church Under the Bridge OR Departure

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We’ll have a forum posted on CKP’s social network, The Kitchen Table, soon to help with coordinating travel and lodging arrangements. We’re also re-opening the application deadline for conference session proposals, the perfect opportunity to get your name out into the broader hunger and poverty community.

The conference is also an ideal time to promote what your Campus Kitchen is doing, while showing your involvement in CKP as a national organization. To help you better explain the event your Campus Kitchen members will attend this Fall, below is a one-pager outlining Hungry for Justice: Social, Economic, Environmental.

CONTACT:

Marianne Magjuka

Baylor University

254.710.6938 (office)

254.710.2622 (fax)

Marianne_Magjuka@baylor.edu

www.baylor.edu/povertysummit

Baylor University’s 3rd Annual Poverty Summit will be held October 8-10, 2010 in conjunction with The Campus Kitchens Project. The conference is entitled Hungry for Justice: Social, Economic, Environmental

Hungry for Justice is a national conference addressing poverty and issues of social justice.  A variety of social concerns will be addressed, with a strong focus on issues stemming from poverty such as hunger and human trafficking. The conference aims to stimulate academic thought and raise awareness about poverty; engage students about the issues of social, economic, and environmental justice; and encourage action.

Outside of Baylor and the Waco community, The Campus Kitchens Project will send students from its 26 affiliated colleges and universities, giving this conference a truly national audience. We are delighted to announce confirmed keynote speakers include Robert Egger, Founder and President of DC Central Kitchen and Shannon Sedgwick Davis, a prominent anti-human trafficking advocate involved in several reconciliation and global human rights endeavors. Davis sits on the advisory board for The Elders, a collective group of international leaders including Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and President Jimmy Carter who meet to discuss difficult issues such as the five-year genocide in Darfur. We also have access to breakout presentations led by OasisUSA, Texas Hunger Initiative, Urban Gardening Coalition, TOMS Shoes, and Compassion International. The conference will also include a food justice panel discussion addressing issues ranging from labor trafficking in agriculture production to food access and nutrition.

Because the conference addresses issues of social, economic, and environmental justice we have been intentional about using fair trade products for all conference materials. Each participant will receive a bracelet purchased from the Kianga Project, which was started by Baylor graduates who returned from Kenya with the goal to economically empower women living with HIV. The four students sell fair trade goods so that the women may build sustainable futures for themselves and their families, and we are excited to join this effort.

Registration is $40, and the tentative schedule, hotel accommodations, and travel information are available at www.baylor.edu/povertysummit. If you are interested in presenting at the conference, complete the request for proposal online by August 13, 2010, and if you are interested in attending, make sure to register by October 1, 2010.

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This year, the Campus Kitchens Project’s Annual Conference will bore right to the heart of hunger, visiting its Baylor University site to partner with the annual BU Poverty Summit with three days of networking, entertainment, and academic thought.

Representatives of 25 Campus Kitchens, poverty scholars, and others from the Baylor community will converge in Baylor University’s Bill Daniel Center on the Waco, Texas campus to participate in sessions both poverty and CKP-themed, with a keynote address delivered by CKP/DCCK founder Robert Egger.

The conference runs from noon on Friday, October 8 to 11 a.m. on Sunday, October 10. A tentative schedule is included below.

To help round out the presentations, The Baylor University Poverty Summit and The Campus Kitchens Project have issued a Request for Proposal, calling for 75-minute presentations that address one of the following: community-building and development, engaging students in higher education to address poverty, international poverty alleviation, or hunger, poverty, and economics.

Online Applications for the call for presentations are due no later than August 13.

Ready to sign up for the conference? Go here.

Schedule:

Friday, October 8
12:00PM Boxed Lunch, Welcome (Barfield)
1:00PM CKP Breakout 1 (SUB)
2:00PM CKP Breakout 2 (SUB)
3:00PM CKP Breakout 3 (SUB)
4:00PM CKP Breakout 4 (SUB)
5:00PM CKP Breakout 5 (SUB)

7:00PM Desert Reception, Keynote Speaker: Robert Eggers (Cashion 5th)
8:00PM Exhibition Opens (Cashion 5th)

Saturday, October 9
9:00AM Keynote Speaker (Cashion 5th)
10:00AM Breakout Session 1
11:00AM Breakout Session 2
12:00PM Boxed lunch and Panel Discussion (Cashion 5th)
1:30PM Breakout Session 3
3:00PM Off-Campus Service

6:00PM Hunger Banquet (Barfield)
8:30PM Documentary on Fountain Mall

Sunday, October 10
9:30AM Closing Speaker (Cashion 5th)
11:00AM CUB or Leave

Mark your calendars now for this year's Campus Kitchens Project Conference

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World Hunger Relief will help CKBU start its farm, after helping Haiti cultivate more rice paddies.

Most Campus Kitchen farms and gardens get direction from master gardeners and local farms in their communities. Some receive expert advice from more prominent farming voices: the operators of the World Hunger Relief farm.

The Campus Kitchen at Baylor University has a unique advantage: it’s situated in Waco, Texas, the same location as the World Hunger Relief farm.

As a partner of World Hunger Relief, a sustainable agriculture training farm in Texas, and a student-led hunger relief organization, the Campus Kitchen will receive direction and support from the Hunger Farm’s creators as it begins its own Farm Project. In addition, the Hunger Farm helps with programming for CKBU’s community partners.

The Hunger Farm’s most recent effort could give CKBU a more specialized farming skill. The farm has received media attention recently for its partnership with Cornell University and a Madagascar rice specialist to improve the rice farming process in Haiti, and in turn provide international hunger relief to a country looking for economic empowerment beyond disaster.

Neil Miller of World Hunger Relief will work with the rice specialist to teach farmers the intensification-growing method in hopes that Haiti will discover a food production method sustainable enough to break free of its dependency on outside help.

The Waco, Texas climate has a lot of similarities to Haiti’s climate, according to Miller, who said Haiti gets a little more rain. The intensified system would limit the use of water by flooding fields every three to four days instead of keeping them continually flooded.

Specialized knowledge like these water conservation methods might just be the thing CKBU needs to start up its farm project. And who knows? Before long, CKBU could have its own rice paddy.

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Mark your calendars now for this year's Campus Kitchens Project Conference

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