Campus Kitchen at Johns Hopkins University

Summer Activities: Gardening

Did you know that we are working in partnership with a group of students on campus to grow a JHU Community Garden?

If you have any interests in growing your own food (whether you’re experienced or not), or if you simply want to check it out to see how it’s done, get involved with the garden!

Follow garden activities and learn how to get involved through the new Garden Blog. jhugarden.wordpress.com (it’s still under construction but please check back continuously for updates!)

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Jessica

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Support our Partner!

We have been working with B-SPIRIT-A²Y, one of our community partners, to increase local awareness about its program and procure more financial support, and we’ve helped them put together a new blog!

Check it out here: bspirita2y.wordpress.com

Also, you can follow the B-SPIRIT page on Facebook!

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Jessica

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UPDATE: If you would like to get involved with this program by volunteering or helping us with fundraising efforts, please contact us at ckjhu@campuskitchens.org

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Thanks to Our Awesome Volunteers!

We’ve had a great year, and we wouldn’t have been able to do any of it had it not been for the amazing volunteers who have helped us along the way.

We are especially grateful for the volunteers who have donated outstanding numbers of hours in our kitchen.  These are the recipients of this year’s Exceptional Volunteers award:

• Julia Zhang
• Karen Ho
• Thuy-My Le

But really, a great many thanks are owed to everyone who has donated any time to the Campus Kitchen at JHU.  We look forward to working with you again over the summer, if you’re available, and throughout the following year, if you’re still here!

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Jessica

Posted in Leadership Team, Students, Volunteers | 1 Comment »

Happy Birthday to Us!

Dear friends, supporters, enthusiasts, and those who are  just curious…

We did it!  One full year of operations are under our belt.

And there’s definitely no pretense about it — it has been a struggle.  We also still have a long way to go and to grow before we fill out our full potential as an organization.  But even looking at what we have accomplished during this crazy first year, we (including you!) have a lot to be proud of.

Here are some of the highlights of the year:

Well, we’ve recovered 6816 lbs of food, delivered 1657 meals, engaged 83 volunteers in 395 hours of service, and collaborated with 11 community partners!

We’ve also strengthened our leadership team with new members.  Here are the members that joined since our initial founding:

• Cathering Liow
• Judy Park
• Joe Kim
• Jill Macnaughton
• Luwam Gebrekristos
• Margaret Xu

And of course our original team has continued to persevere in their efforts to make food distribution more just, to combat poverty, and to build relationships within our local community.

We want to thank you all so much for a spectacular first year, and we know things will only continue to get better.

We posted some photos from our anniversary celebration on our flickr page!

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Jessica

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Leadership Team Applications are Now Available!

Click on the Join the Movement! tab above to look at position descriptions and fill out an application!

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Edit:  The Deadline has now been set to April 19th.

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Through Wind and Rain…

I have two exciting bits to report on this dreariest of March days:

First, the Alternative Spring Break program at JHU — “Breaking in Baltimore” – kicked off to a roaring start today!  For the past few months, CKJHU has been working in partnership with the JHU Center for Social Concern to put this program together.  Finally, after a brief session of introductions, ice-breakers, and a food justice presentation (given by myself), the enthustiac group of six Hopkins undergraduates have been sent on their way to a week-long residential and intensive program in Baltimore, exploring local and national food justice issues.  Part of their program will include a volunteer shift at the DC Central Kitchen, where they will get a chance to speak with none other than Robert Egger (!!!).  Additionally, in the middle of their week, they will be cooking dinner at the local Church of the Guardian Angel — dinner that they will be eating alongside members of the Remington community.  These and many more activities are in store, so stay tuned!

Second, since next week is Spring Break at JHU, just like clockwork, earlier this week we got a call from Ken Sarda at the Charles Street Market, and only a few moments ago, I and a participant of “Breaking in Baltimore” just hauled a van-load of milk, fresh produce, and deli meats to the Helping Up Mission.  I estimated over 600lbs of food!  Hooray and keep those calls coming Ken!

Thats it for now!

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Jessica

Posted in Alternative Breaks, Community, Events, Food, Guardian Angel, Helping Up Mission, JHU Dining Services, Partners, Programming, Students, Volunteers | No Comments »

Catering Catches On!

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!

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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.

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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!

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Jessica

Posted in Community, Food, Franciscan Center, JHU Catering, Partners | No Comments »

CKJHU Kicks Off 2010 With A Bang!

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!

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Winter Recovery, through snow and ice!

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!

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Jessica Zha

CKJHU Coordinator

Posted in Community, Food, Helping Up Mission, JHU Dining Services, Partners | No Comments »

Dear CKJHU Leaders, Helpers, Volunteers, and Friends:

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!

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Jessica Zha
Campus Kitchen at JHU Coordinator

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