Sometimes graphics speak louder than words.

Ever looked around your adopted community and wondered how much families spend on dining out vs. grocery shopping? Campus Kitchens look at factors like these weekly as they decide who to serve, what’s on the menu, and how to infuse a meal drop off with nutrition.

Recently, Flowingdata.com, a web site that translates social questions into easy to digest answers, released a statistical visualization poster titled “What America spends on Food and Drink.” The graphic breaks down spending for large cities for dining out (restaurants and carryout) and groceries, while making the text bubbles larger or smaller based on population size.

The numbers give Campus Kitchens some healthy insight into how their communities are eating, whether they enjoy their food in raw or prepared form, and where some of the greatest fresh food access issues are.

While numbers indicate Austin as spending the most per year on food, Atlanta spends the highest percentage while dining out, and Detroit – in connection with recent economic hardships – is spending the least.

The University of Detroit Mercy also happens to be a possible site for a Campus Kitchen opening, which would help alleviate some of that need. Other Campus Kitchen cities profiled by this graphic include (in declining order from how much they spend): Washington, D.C., Boston, New Orleans (future site), St. Louis, New York, Chicago, and Baltimore.

Based on recent U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics (April 2010), however, this graphic presents another concerning issue for hunger relief advocates like Campus Kitchens. The April assessment shows that for a 12-month period, food for an average family of four on a thrifty spending plan could cost upwards of 7,000 dollars. The graphic shows only about half of the major cities actually spend this amount, and many, like New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit, fall below that mark. Is this a good indicator of how much hunger relief is needed in each of these cities? Is there a way to level things out?

Just some food for thought.

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The Mission Continues’ Eric Greitens was nominated as one of three finalists for the St. Louis Cardinals (each major league team has three finalists) in the “People All-Stars Among Us” competition for his continuing work to unite veterans and their fellow citizens in shared service.

Most recently, The Mission Continues participated with The Campus Kitchens Project as one of its MLK Day grantees, organizing a food drive, cooking, and delivering meals to the city alongside the Campus Kitchen at St. Louis University.

To vote for Eric, log on to www.PeopleAllStars.com now through June 20. If chosen, Eric will be invited to represent St. Louis at the 2010 All-Star Week in Anaheim, Calif. Eric will also be able to attend the opening ceremony of the All-Star Game on July 13.

In addition to being honored at the All-Star Game, one finalist (out of 30) will be featured in People magazine during the week of the All-Star Game.

Show your support by voting for Eric at www.PeopleAllStars.com . There is no limit to how many times you can vote.

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An Installation by Gordon Matta-Clark

One of the earliest supporters of pay-what-you-can restaurants will make his mark in the food world again, decades after his lifetime, via the Campus Kitchen at St. Louis University at an event June 5.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis came to coordinator Jenny Bird with a unique idea for a fundraiser/community event: the museum would gather Gordon Matta-Clark enthusiasts, an artist known for his abandoned building cuts and deconstruction, open up its exhibitions, gratis, and invite local food purveyors for demonstrations and cooking activities.

So what the cost of event? A suggested $5 donation – or flour, oil, or vinegar, if attendees have it on hand.

The event, which runs 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., is titled “Art/Food” and presented in conjuction with the closing of Gordon Matta-Clark’s exhibit: Urban Alchemy and the opening of the Comtemporary’s Great Rivers Biennial.

Matta-Clark opened a restaurant, simply termed “Food” in 1971, entirely managed and staffed by artists. It quickly became a gathering spot for local artists with an open kitchen mentality.

In the spirit of Matta-Cark, the museum will serve the public with cooking activities (think beer brewing and s’more making) and food samples through local chefs, including: Aaron Teitelbaum, Herbie’s Vintage ’72, Josh Galliano, Monarch Restaurant; Anthony Devoti, Five Bistro; and John Judy, L’Ecole Culinaire.

The event  is sponsored by Fitz’s Root Beer, the Mountain Valley Water Company of St. Louis, and Slow Food St. Louis.

Hungry for more? Attend the event, feast your eyes, and help feed.

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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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Campus Kitchens across the nation were stuffed with activity this Thanksgiving for the annual Turkeypalooza project, a hunger relief initiative mobilizing kitchens to feed thousands on Turkey Day.

The Campus Kitchen at St. Louis University tacked on seven extra cooking shifts to roast 20 whole turkeys, which, when coupled with 20 precooked turkey breasts, served almost 600 meals to needy populations in the St. Louis area.

Eastward, the Campus Kitchen at Washington and Lee University tapped into its partnership with the local Wal Mart – which regularly gives the kitchen discontinued items or dented cans – to feed nine agencies 230 meals.

The Campus Kitchen at Wake Forest University took the advice Gonzaga’s Campus Kitchen, 2500 miles away, and served pumpkin cookies in lieu pumpkin pie to make packaging and transport smoother.

Over 150 volunteers gathered at the Minnesota State University, Mankato Campus Kitchen to help pick up and drop off 200 turkey dinners.

At the Campus Kitchen at Gettysburg College, volunteers may have found it helpful to know the word “pavo”, Spanish for turkey. That’s because the kitchen hosted a Thanksgiving themed bilingual dinner, the result of cooking ten turkeys for three client agencies.

Organizers at Gettysburg recruited volunteers from upper level Spanish classes, study abroad programs, and the Latin American Student Association to practice their language skills (with the Hispanic families the kitchen serves) while munching on green beans, applesauce, and Mexican pasta with ground beef and beans.

“People shared what they were thankful for, then we all enjoyed a delicious meal made up of both typical Thanksgiving food and Hispanic foods,” says Megan Crowe, Campus Kitchen coordinator.

At all of the 20 Campus Kitchens, as the last mound of mashed potatoes disappeared and the last bone was picked, volunteers and coordinators were already gearing up to cook and serve again – using leftover frozen turkeys and holiday-themed menus – before winter break.

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The coordinators of our nationally staffed Campus Kitchens recently had a conference call where we learned about a DC Central Kitchen program called First Helping. First Helping is a street-level outreach program that uses food as a tool to establish trust and build relationships with homeless and low-income individuals. From serving the food the idea is to be able to build relationships with people to be able to establish a connection with them and encourage people to received services when appropriate. It is a really neat outreach that DCCK does, not only because people are receiving healthy and hot food but also because it is building relationships with people.

It is easy to talk about poverty in a material sense, and solutions to it. A person is hungry–well, give them food. A person is homeless–well, give them shelter. What isn’t talked about is that because a person is hungry and homeless, and often bouncing around the city, if not country, they are also lonely, sometimes very lonely. Sometimes they are so ill that the reason they are homeless is because maintaining relationships is so difficult without medication that they are pushed away from anyone who cares about them.

What isn’t talked about is possibly the most numbing and dehumanizing poverty of all, poverty of relationships. The sheer lack of relationships in a person’s life is an incredibly painful thing, which is why the real outreach of First Helping is relationship building, not serving food.

To bring this closer to home for Campus Kitchens, we only have to look at our clients. Most of our clients have a roof over their head and at least something to eat, but many of them are still suffering from a poverty of relationships. This is why the Campus Kitchen Project is not about the food, but rather, it is about the people, student and client alike.

At CKSLU we take our deliveries very seriously, because it is our only connection to real people. We have delivery shifts that sometimes take an half an hour or even an hour longer because our volunteers lost track of time while talking to clients. The difference that I always tell my volunteers is this: if we are going to people and giving them food and leaving, we aren’t treating them like people. We are helping to feed them for that night, but only that night.

But if we are going to people and giving them food and sharing stories and talking with them, we are building a relationship between people. It doesn’t matter if it is a fifteen second interaction or a fifteen minute conversation; the intent of it was to build a relationship. We are not only feeding their body, we are feeding their whole person.

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