For Katie Winn who heads the Campus Kitchen at East Carolina University as an AmeriCorps VISTA, transitioning her kitchen to an entirely student-led organization began as soon as she put on her apron to direct the program.

“The first step was to get them running the shifts by themselves,” says Winn. “They are now leading shifts on their own, but I still help with coordinating them.”

Winn took over the Campus Kitchen at East Carolina University, now just over a year old, from a former VISTA who helped establish the program. Since then she’s collected over 1000 pounds of food in a canned food drive, continued mutually beneficial relationships with their two community partners, and taken significant steps toward helping student leaders take ownership of the program.

Now, she’s establishing a leadership team as she prepares to pass on her duties.

“They are going to apply and vote anonymously into the positions to cover every part of kitchen maintenance,” says Winn.

Winn says she will create seven executive team positions and give shift-leader roles to students who don’t have as much time to commit to the Campus Kitchen. The executive team includes: Volunteer Manager, National Liaison, ServSafe/Aministrative Coordinator, Community Partners Affiliate, Shift Manager, Media/Public Relations Manager, and Resource Procurement Coordinator.

A core group of student leaders have kept the Campus Kitchen going since its inception, so Winn says that group will apply and vote anonymously to fill the positions. From there the leadership team will have the daunting task of managing a popular and growing program with little oversight.

“Right now we have a very good problem in that we have a lot more volunteers than we have space to volunteer in,” says Winn.

As the new leadership team learns their roles, the Campus Kitchen at East Carolina University will look next to expand community partnerships by adding a local shelter or soup kitchen to the people they serve.

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What began as a friendly canned food drive contest between student organizations ended with 9000 pounds of donated non-perishables to help feed the hungry of Greenville, N.C.

Winn said she worked with East Carolina University’s Homecoming Committee to become the beneficiary of the canned food drive contest, a campus tradition. In return for canned goods of their choice, Campus Kitchen volunteers agreed to receive the donations at the local food bank and process them.

“We had people bring in cranberry sauce,” says Winn. “Since we’re about to do Turkeypalooza, we were really excited to have a piece of our meal already donated.”

Winn worked alongside one other Campus Kitchen supporter and one member of the Homecoming committee for four hours to sort through the cans, which were coming in so fast, they needed to use forklifts to move them.

Volunteers then sorted donations of green beans, canned potatoes, raviolis, corn, soups, and cake mixes by food type and checked all the expiration dates. Winn says she decided to take 1000 pounds of food for the Campus Kitchen and leave the rest for the local food bank.

At the next cooking shift Winn says she will begin integrating the donations, and is excited about making use of them for Turkeypalooza.

Her advice to other Campus Kitchens: “Have more people there; more hands. Be aware of how much food you are going to get. Also, we didn’t quite pay attention to the expiration dates when we first went through it. Pay attention early on so you don’t have to process the cans twice.”

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In its first semester as an official member of The Campus Kitchens Project, the Campus Kitchen at East Carolina University ended up with much more on its plate than meal and delivery shifts

The Campus Kitchen, which opened in February 2010, ignited innovation in its first semester of service, adding food drive swaps, delivery shift invites, and tutoring with a community partner to the Campus Kitchens Project repertoire.

While the kitchen kicked things off with a campus-wide food drive to supplement the start of meal shifts, the second time around, the leadership team knew they needed to come up with more from the drive to maximize meals.

CKECU partnered with their campus dining services, Aramark, to host the food drive, promoting drop off sites in campus retail food locations. The drive accumulated around 100 pounds of food, ranging from canned veggies, to fruit, cake and brownie mixes.

Many of the single can servings donated couldn’t be used for large, congregate style meals that the kitchen serves, but with some quick thinking Campus Kitchen leaders arranged a swap with their community partner, the Ronald McDonald House of Eastern North Carolina. The Campus Kitchen could then trade in single servings for cans that would help make a complete meal.

CKECU also seamlessly integrated an advisory board into its general operations in the first few months. The advisory board consists of members from each of their partners, food activists, and the service learning center on campus.

To keep the board engaged in continuing issues of the Campus Kitchen as it grows, the leadership team invites  members to come on delivery shifts for community partners. Staff at the Ronald McDonald House gladly took them up on that offer and visited another community partner, The Little Willie Center, earlier this month.

While “Beyond Meals” Initiatives are still on the horizon for this newbie Campus  Kitchen, ideas about nutrition programming are already in the making. Students who go on Delivery Shifts to the Little Willie Center are also jumping in to participate in additional tutoring help with the children there, when there is time.

Word on the street is: they just love it.

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During the three days spent at East Carolina University, coordinator Kim Caudle and her leadership team executed a kickoff event, and test-run cook and delivery shifts. Through it all, they let us follow them with our camera. Here’s a quick glimpse into the kitchen tour Kim led and the cooking/delivery shifts to follow.

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In 2009, 3.16 million college students performed more than 300 million hours of service.

From those numbers, six colleges and universities have been named as Presidential Awardees in the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement.

One Campus Kitchen site, Lee University in Cleveland, TN, was named among the six Presidential Awardees. Lee students completed more than 60,000 hours of volunteer service last year in projects aimed at poverty relief, food collection and distribution, and helping students with autism and other developmental disabilities. More than 80 percent of Lee’s students are involved in volunteering and service-learning.

“CKP is a huge support of our [Lee University's] benevolence arm. Thanks for all your work toward establishing CKLee,” said William B. Lamb, Director of Field Experiences for the Leonard Center at Lee University.

Two additional Honor Roll lists included colleges and universities that also house or are developing a Campus Kitchen as part of their community service portfolio.

The Honor Roll with Distinction includes:
Augsburg College
Saint Louis University
Union College
College of William and Mary
University of Wisconsin Eau Claire
Tulane University*
College of the Holy Cross*
Elon University*

The Honor Roll includes:
University of Florida
University of Massachusetts Boston
Washington University in St. Louis
East Carolina University
Wake Forest University
University of Vermont
University of Virginia
Gonzaga University
Marquette University
University of Detroit Mercy*

*Universities that are currently working with CKP to develop Campus Kitchens.

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CKECU had limited resources to work with since the kitchen has not had the chance yet to stockpile many goods. Regardless, they devised a way to combine canned goods collected from a food drive with Aramark’s (ECU dining services) generous donation of beef tips, pearl onions, and mushrooms.

The meat was already cooked, so after temping, wrapping, and storing the food in mobile carts, students moved on to creating the rest of the meal.

Volunteers stuck to simple green beans for the first shift, but got more creative when it came to the starch and dessert. Using whole, canned potatoes, and donated butter and milk, students mashed and seasoned their starch to perfection. Next, they drained peaches and pear, dusting cinnamon on top to give the dessert more flavor.

After properly recording, wrapping, and stowing all the food, they were able to remove hairnets, aprons, and prepare for a meal delivery shift to the Ronald McDonald House of Eastern North Carolina on Friday.

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Among the speakers were: Kim Caudle, coordinator of the Campus Kitchen, Ariel Gold, CKP Affiliate Programs Manager, Dr. Lynn Roeder, Dean of Students, and Mike Lysaght, Resident District Manager of Aramark dining services.

Just following the speakers, Caudle and other leadership team members brought partners, press, and curious attendees on a tour of the kitchen space, which was generously donated by Amarak. (Stay-tuned for a glimpse into the kitchen.)

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The Corporation for Community and National Service also received some amazing pictures and video, and they’re holding a contest here.

Curious to see what others put together for the big day? Vote for your peers here before Friday, February 26.
One Campus Kitchen opening next week, East Carolina University, has a picture nominated in the contest. Show them your support!

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Today I’m at ECU.  Where I learned that there is a distinction between Arrr and Arrrgh.  The Pirates, the mascot of ECU, may say Arrr, which on campus can be confused with Arrrrgh (apparently which MAY have  a completely different meaning).  Who knew the semantics of a Pirate could be so difficult.

They may not be great at semantics but they’ve managed to do a much better job of doing stellar service in their community.  Today I met with a few administrators from ECU, but I was most impressed when I met Judy Baker.  It’s not every day when you get to meet someone who founded a Volunteer and Service Learning Center. 

Judy was just returning from volunteering with a blind woman.  She took her in the car to help her get her medication and found out that the one thing she wished she could do if she could see was give flowers to the local hospice that helped her husband after many trips to the hospital.  So Judy agreed to come back on Wednesday and take her to make flower arrangements and then deliver them to the local hospice branch.

It never ceases to amaze what people involved in service can get done.  But the growth and expansion of Volunter and Service Learning on campus at ECU has clearly been imprinted by a great woman.  Commitment to service was more than a job to Judy, it’s also a lifestyle. 

I got a chance to ask her how she started the program and she told me that she used to work for the University in Health, but she’s always been about service.  So she wrote her own grants, and was promised by the Chancellor that if she could make a difference he’d get her funding.

Well they got their funding, and now ECU has numerous projects based on their impact in the community.  Students at ECU work on projects ranging from health, communications, education and child development and family relations.  I can’t wait to add food recovery, sustainability and leadership to that list.

Check back for more tomorrow to hear about how hard Jeni and Jessica are working.  And maybe even some pictures from some hands on work going on in Greenville.

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