Campus Kitchen at Johns Hopkins University

Catering Catches On!

March 2, 2010 – 10:51 pm

After the communications troubles that we had with JHU Catering after MLK day, we were becoming slightly discouraged by our so-far minimal relationship with this sector of food service on campus — but NOT ANYMORE!

We just got a call from Head Chef Michael Gueiss regarding 200 extra servings worth of chicken, pasta, and green beans prepared by Catering in anticipation of more guests than actually showed up to a campus event… And the best part is, when I spoke with Chef Devlin, who is the catering chef in charge of this event, he not only wanted us to have the food, he expressed to me his relief that we would be able to take it and put it to good use.

Our plans are to donate the food to a couple of locations, including our long time partner, the Church of the Guardian Angel in Remington, and the Franciscan Center.

Big props to Chef Devlin, Chef Gueiss, and all the other members of the staff who helped make this happen!

_____________________________________________________________

Update: March 3, 3:41 pm

I just finished one heck of a delivery!

Turns out they had nearly 400 meals for us! We brought about 30 servings worth to the Church of the Guardian Angel, and took the rest to the Franciscan Center — and MAN were they happy!

The Franciscan Center is a local organization that runs a meal kitchen. They feed between 200 and 400 people (depending on the time of month) every week day.

_____________________________________________________________

Update: March 4, 3:00 pm

Just got an email from Linda Orem, our contact at the Franciscan Center:

Thank you so much for all of the delicious food that you provided to us yesterday. We served all of the food as our regular meal today, and the clients loved it. They came back to the food service line to thank the volunteers for the “very good food.”

Blessings,
Linda

Yay!

Jessica

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

CKJHU Kicks Off 2010 With A Bang!

January 28, 2010 – 5:48 pm

It’s the middle of January, which means that while it’s cold outside, Campus Kitchens at Johns Hopkins is heating back up to kick off the spring semester! Weekly cooking shifts are starting up soon, but most of the current focus has been on our first major fundraising event for the semester: The Stand-Up Comic in Society Final Performance!

The Stand-Up Comic in Society is an intersession class offered at JHU that allows students to learn, practice, and perfect their stand-up routines. The final stand-up performance by the students attracts hundreds of guests.

At the show, voluntary donations were collected for CKJHU, half of which are going towards canned foods for victims of the Haitian earthquake, and half of which are going to similar efforts locally.

We were able to raise nearly $300 for Campus Kitchens!

Ongoing fundraising efforts will continue throughout the semester for both CKJHU and Haiti disaster relief so stay tuned!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Winter Recovery, through snow and ice!

December 23, 2009 – 1:07 pm

Dear Friends,

Though we are closed for the holidays, I just wanted to share an exciting new development. This past Monday, we picked up nearly 1000 lbs of food from the Charles Street Market and the Fresh Food Cafe! Both establishments belong to the University’s dining services, and this is the first time we’ve gotten such a haul from Fresh Foods since we started in the spring.

We especially owe our thanks to Ken Sarda, the manager of the Charles Street Market, for being such a regular supporter of our Campus Kitchen, and for trekking out during the Snowiest December in Baltimore History to get the food to us from BOTH locations!

We immediately dropped off all of the food at the Helping Up Mission, a 12-month residential Spiritual Recovery Program for drug and alcohol addicts in downtown Baltimore.

I just received this letter from Luke McCusker, Manager of Food Services at Helping Up Mission, this morning:

Jessica,

We are loving the food you sent. We served a meal for 200 guys yesterday with it, and our salad bar will be well fortified for quite a while. The Oranges were a major hit, and our beef stew for dinner was filled with fresh veggies……wonderful.

I would estimate that we received 800-1,000 lbs of food from you.

Thank you so much!

Luke McCusker

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty darned excited!

Jessica Zha

CKJHU Coordinator

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Dear CKJHU Leaders, Helpers, Volunteers, and Friends:

December 17, 2009 – 2:19 pm

I’m sorry to say that this semester of operations for the Campus Kitchen at JHU is already drawing to a close, but we really have a lot to celebrate as the holidays approach.

Amazingly, during this semester — our first semester of full operations –- by our joint efforts we’ve:

Recovered 1,285 lbs of food from being thrown away
Gleaned over 2,500 lbs of produce from farms
Prepared and donated 687 meals
Volunteered over 270 hours of our time

So, congratulations to all of you for your hard work and dedication; for believing in our cause; and simply for being excited about the Campus Kitchens Project, and wanting to support us!

I’d also like to thank you on behalf of our community partners, who were the recipients of the food that we recovered and prepared:

The Church of the Guardian Angel, Remington
Remington Radio Class, Remington
B-Spirit A2y, Park Heights
Manna House, Barclay
Barclay Elementary/Middle, Barclay
Crossover Basketball, Barclay/Homewood
Margaret Brent, Charles Village
Second Shiloh, Coldstream Homestead Montebello
Franciscan Center, Charles Village

With our efforts, some of these organizations were able to provide food for their clients for the very first time. Others were able to keep up with regular meal distributions despite the current economic struggles that they face. And some were simply able to save some money that can go directly towards more programs for community empowerment.

We’re saying goodbye for now, but we’ll be back in January with more food recovery, more cooking shifts, and some new delivery shifts, so be on the lookout for us and spread the word.

We hope you have a joy-filled and safe holiday season, and we can’t wait to see you next year!

Jessica Zha
Campus Kitchen at JHU Coordinator

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Welcome to the Campus Kitchen at Johns Hopkins University

May 29, 2009 – 10:47 am

The Campus Kitchen at Johns Hopkins University is the 20th branch of the Campus Kitchens Project, a national non-profit that uses the energy of students across the country to end hunger, one step at a time.

We take the simple facts:

A lot of people–not only in Baltimore, but also in cities across the world–don’t get enough to eat,
A lot of food that is still perfectly edible gets thrown out every day,
And there are always people who want to help their society in any way they can.

CKJHU uses those facts to create a simple solution: we take unused food from JHU dining halls, restaurants and local farms that would have gone in the trash, we store it and cook it into nutritious meals, and we take it to places in need such as homeless shelters, after-school programs and senior citizen homes in low-income neighborhoods.