The man who strives to empower voices in a new generation of service-oriented, “dot orgs”, also conceived and created The Campus Kitchens Project,  modeling the national program after D.C. Central Kitchen, a non-profit he initially founded in 1989.

Egger’s vision has led to the creation of 26 Campus Kitchens today, with even more prepping to open their doors in the coming year. At each kitchen, sometimes hundreds of students volunteer, and most come away with something:  from leadership skills to a new found appreciation for cooking, or a moment shared with someone during meal delivery. Many of these students are not quite sure how to extend this give-and-take beyond the walls of the Campus Kitchen.

That’s where Robert Egger’s live chat at the Campus Kitchen’s Project’s The Kitchen Table comes in. He’ll take to the keyboard Friday, May 14 to chat candidly with Campus Kitchen students, their community partners, and anyone else who’d like to join, about how to propel a life of service into a sustainable career, how he got where he is today, and social enterprise. The chat comes as a timely prologue to the commencement address Robert Egger will give to Gettysburg College on Sunday, May 16. The Campus Kitchen at Gettysburg College recently held a campus-wide celebration for hitting the milestone of 10,000 meals served.

Please submit questions for the chat in advance to jtouton@campuskitchens.org by 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 13

Robert Egger will host a live chat on CKP's own social network.

Robert Egger – The Campus Kitchens Project live Chat

Making Meal Service into a Career of Service

When: Friday, May 14 at 2  – 2:30 p.m. EST

Where: The direct link to the chat is here. You must sign up for The Kitchen Table to participate in the chat. Please sign up for The Kitchen Table at least 24 hours in advance to allow for approval.

What: Robert Egger will lead a live, typed chat that talks with students and community partners about what they can create and take with them beyond meal service. How do you propel a college career of service into a lasting career? How is this sustainable? What makes Campus Kitchen volunteers particularly viable in the current economy? How can you be a dot com and a dot org at the same time? How should you best leverage your Campus Kitchen experience in your job search? What brought Robert Egger to where he is today? Egger will answer these questions, and more.

Also: Please submit questions by 5 p.m., Thursday, May 13, for the live chat. Participants are encouraged to ask follow up questions during the live chat session, which is hosted at The Kitchen Table.

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Campus Kitchens don’t often experience trouble getting cooks in the kitchen. With a student volunteer force sourced from a generation of givers and new service learning curriculums, meal and delivery shifts are readily filled.

But beyond direct service, Campus Kitchen students work to develop their own non-profits, and often need the support of skilled professionals to help build long term Campus Kitchen sustainability.

Good news, says a study released by Deloitte May 3: corporations regard workplace volunteerism as a means to effect long-term social change, and increasingly, they’re offering up employees to participate in skilled volunteer opportunities.

The 2010 Deloitte Volunteer Impact Survey is a four-page study on how and why skilled volunteerism – service beyond basic labor – is progressing according to corporate managers. In that study, 84 percent of corporate managers said they believe volunteerism can help nonprofits achieve long-term goals and another 60 percent reported offering option for employee-selected projects.

That means a PR professional who also loves to cook might want to donate press release writing and news savvy services to his/her local Campus Kitchen.

Similarly, 64 percent of corporate managers report they offer options that fit with the company’s philanthropic focus. So, sooner than you may think, a skilled seed supplier or master gardener could end up plotting out the Campus Kitchen Spring garden.

In all, the report comes as good news for Campus Kitchens and other small non-profits with a strong volunteer force and a need to develop. Take a cue from Deloitte, reach out to local, skilled professionals that could offer sustainability to your Campus Kitchen, and see where you grow from there.

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The Princeton Review recognized that more and more high school seniors choose their colleges based on how environmentally conscious they are. Of those surveyed, 24 percent of students said that a college’s commitment to the environment would “very much” impact their college decision. This gave the university ratings company reason to devise a method for evaluating a schools greenness, using campus commitment to sustainability, the degree of environmental academics, and efforts to reduce a school’s carbon footprint in the future.

Campus Kitchens are the poster child for campus sustainability, environmental service learning, and reducing waste on campus, so it’s no surprise that eleven of 26 kitchens were deemed among the 268 Greenest Colleges in America.

CK Coordinators show of their new, more efficient (green!) kitchen at Gettysburg, during their Earth Day event

So what makes campuses “green”? Aside from having a Campus Kitchen?  Some of the things The Princeton Review sited are: availability of locally grown food, green buildings on campus, formal committees on sustainability, environmental degrees, biodegradable containers, and alternative modes of transport on campus.

Below is a list of the eleven current Campus Kitchens to make the cut. Three more likely Campus Kitchens in Fall 2010 also made the list: Elon College, Louisiana State University, and Tulane University.

College of William and Mary

Gettysburg College

Johns Hopkins University

Marquette University

St. Lawrence University

Union College

University of Florida

University of Massachusetts Boston

University of Vermont

University of Virginia

Wake Forest University

It’s not easy being green.

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One of the university’s final sustainable events, led by the Campus Kitchen at the University of Florida, was centered around (of course) food. The Campus Kitchen used the 40 days of activities as an opportunity to host its food week, which took place April 5 to April 9.

As part of the “Food Summit for Sustainability” leadership team members and student volunteers threw a Stop Hunger Now banquet to raise funds and awareness. This year, the team went international.

The CKUF reserved a university hall basement and asked for $5 (advance tickets) and $7 at door for a banquet of international foods and a hunger presentation to rally the Gator community around the spirit of Campus Kitchens.

Future and current Campus Kitchen leaders Allison Gibbs and Nicole Johnson at the Stop Hunger Now Banquet

Those who attended sampled fare from around the globe: Asian stir fry with shrimp, spaghetti, a broccoli and cheese casserole, curry potatoes, green beans  and corn, quesadillas and salsa, rice and beans, roasted turkey, grilled chicken breast, Mojo Picante chicken, salad, croissants, bagels, chow mein, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies and brownies.

A DJ played international music during the banquet, and later, about 40 attendees learned of international hunger and sustainable ways to solve the problem through an interactive presentation.

Below are some links to the videos the CKUF team showed:

Eaten in One Week

Vandana Shiva

Al Jazeera English, food solutions

Campus Kitchen overview

View more pictures on CKUF’s Flickr Account:

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“It’s multilayered with them [the middle school students],” says Emily Paulson, coordinator for CKGU. “They not only got to interact with city officials, but the people they think are really cool: the Gonzaga University students. They are also outside, learning about sustainable gardening. And, they have fun playing in the dirt.”

After an opening speech, ribbon-cutting, and tour of the facility, the Garry Middle School students worked with Campus Kitchen volunteers and several master gardeners to plant: swiss chard, carrots, potatoes, onions, peppers and lettuce for about an hour. By the end of April, students will also start cantaloupe and tomatoes.

As the garden progresses, students young and old will take turns watering the garden, and one city council member is even working to get a volunteer force from community centers to tend to it over the summer. In addition to the bounty of fresh produce the garden will yield for the Campus Kitchen, Paulson hopes garden maintenance will turn into a green job for a Spokane resident.

Before - students weed the donated greenhouse

After - Students get a tour of the greenhouse plots

More Pictures of the Opening:

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Washington, D.C. – This spring is particularly green for The Campus Kitchens Project (CKP) across the country with March bringing new funding, inaugural greenhouse crops and milestone events such as 50,000 meals served.

In 25 cities, CKP partners with high schools, colleges and universities to share on-campus kitchen space, recover unused food from cafeterias, work with local farms and community gardens for produce and engage students as volunteers who plan menus, prepare and deliver meals to the community. Below are “Green” Spring examples from three cities:

• The Campus Kitchen at the University of Vermont won $25,000 from the Newman’s Own Foundation in recognition of their work to alleviate hunger in the Burlington area. Funds will be used to support the Kitchen’s nutrition and gleaning programs, expand its community outreach and nutrition education classes, and supplement operational expenses at The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, which has seen a 20 percent increase in demand for services.

• Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., will celebrate their Campus Kitchen’s 50,000th meal on March 20. Commemorating this important milestone, the Kitchen will host a 5K run on campus. Each decimeter of the run represents a meal prepared and served by student volunteers.

• On March 22, the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., will host a ribbon cutting and planting ceremony at their new community greenhouse. Kitchen volunteers will be joined by Gonzaga’s President, Dr. Thayne McCulloh, members of the City of Spokane City Council, and local students from Garry Middle School to plant a sustainable, organic garden in the greenhouse that will provide fresh produce for the Kitchens’ meals.

To see what’s happening on a campus near you, visit www.campuskitchens.org.

Now in its ninth year, CKP operates on almost 30 college and high school campuses, providing meals to individuals and families in their communities. Students drive all phases of operations from preparing and delivering nutritious meals to those in need, to the development of funds that maintain and grow the program.

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The Campus Kitchen at Washington and Lee University, in addition to just serving its 50,000th meal, also discovered an amazing grant opportunity to bolster your Campus Kitchen’s going green campaign.

The One by One campaign, run by 4imprint, grants $500 worth of promotional products each business day to help causes spread the word, thank donors, recruit volunteers, and add to programs.

Anyone who is part of a 501c(3) charity is eligible apply.  Just fill out the simple form here. Jenny Sproul, coordinator for the Campus Kitchen at Washington and Lee received the $500 in-kind grant, and says that while it’s not going to cover all the containers, it’s a good start.

Read more about the kind of containers Jenny is buying at The Kitchen Table (email jtouton@campuskitchens.org for an invite.)

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CKUVM Students Pose at a Mardi Gras Celebration

One Campus Kitchen will get more than salad dressing from Newman’s Own this March: The Newman’s Own Foundation is granting 5 to 25 thousand for one standout, do-good organization per campus in the America East Conference.

The Foundation partnered with the America East Conference to choose one leading, service-focused student group – that is closely affiliated with a non-profit – at each member university. Other nominees include University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Project Health, which connects low-income patients and their families with resources they need to be healthy and University of Albany’s Students of Albany Against Cancer, which raises awareness for early cancer prevention and detection.

Participants from the nine schools in the conference will be evaluated on the level of the group’s involvement with an affiliated non-profit as well as the degree it reflects Paul Newman’s spirit of creativity and commitment. Judges will also consider mission and programs, and the impact the grant money will have on the populations served.

The Campus Kitchen at the University of Vermont was nominated in connection with the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and the grant would help fund gleaning and nutrition programs.

One student group will receive a grant of $25,000, $15,000, and $10,000, and six will get $5000. The Campus Kitchen is among the three finalists to receive between 10 and 25 thousand. Grant recipients will be profiled throughout America East’s men’s and women’s basketball championships at the University of Hartford, March 4-7.

The Campus Kitchen at University of Vermont’s volunteers are keeping their spoons crossed to win the grand prize of $25,000 in an awards ceremony March 7!

CKUVM on the Local News

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This will be an exciting time for many Campus Kitchens who already have or are starting campus/community gardens. Come Spring, the Campus Kitchen at Wake Forest University will be using their MLK Day grant money to start up three community gardens in their area. Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA have received a donated greenhouse and students will begin tilling the garden in Spring.

Several other Campus Kitchens including Washington and Lee, Augsburg, Gettysburg, and Vermont will continue established community gardens – and could offer a few pointers for Campus Kitchens interested in starting one too.

We challenge you green thumbs out there to try to make your garden (and kitchen) more sustainable by composting your kitchen scraps and using that golden mixture to make your garden grow! Not only will this help to reduce the volume of trash produced in your kitchen, but it will also save you the cost of buying fertilizer while adding much-needed nutrients to the soil on your campus.

Check out this great website for specific details on how to get a compost pile started.

And, a word from the EPA (This link provides info on composting programs in your area and laws surrounding composting in your city.)

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The price of going almost paperless: one mini laptop for $290. Kim Davidson, associate director of the Center for Public Service at Gettysburg College, says she purchased the computer through Gettysburg College and connected it to the university network for access and maintenance purposes.

“When all of our information was on separate papers it was difficult to utilize it without having to spend many hours entering data into spreadsheets,” wrote Davidson. “Our new system does it automatically.”

When students and community members show up for a cooking or delivery shift, they log on to the mini laptop and enter their information. As shifts wrap up, shift leaders enter donations, meal statistics and the end-of-shift checklist on the shared spreadsheet. The only paper that’s needed in the process: signed volunteer release forms.

Wrote Davidson: “Google documents are very easy to set up! Once we created a Gmail account, we were able to create online forms.”

The Gmail inbox  has a “Documents” link in the left-hand corner. Click on “create new… form.”  This allows you to create and share an online form. Once volunteers submit information through the form, it automatically gets entered into a spreadsheet.

The Campus Kitchen at Gettysburg College created the following forms through Google Docs:
1) Volunteer information (for first-time volunteers)
2) Volunteer Hours (for every time a person volunteers)
3) Meal Statistics
4) Food Donations
5) Cooking Shift In/Out

They also converted their online volunteer sign up form to this system.
Wrote Davidson “Another benefit is that all the forms and spreadsheets are available online from any computer! Program Coordinators can check who is volunteering on a certain date from their rooms or, if they want to know what we are low on in the kitchen (like hairnets or soap) they can look at the “Cooking Shift In/Out” spreadsheet and order while they are in the office.”

Visit the Google Docs help forum for more on how to set up your own forms online.

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