Campus Kitchen at UMASS Boston

Fight Childhood Hunger AND Enhance Your Resume!

[Note: This is a repost of an entry from December 6, 2011.]

Are you passionate about food justice, sustainability and the fight against hunger? Are you interested in pursuing a career in the non-profit sector? Looking for the experience that will make your resume stand out? Just looking for a meaningful way to spend your spare time?

CKUMB is recruiting student volunteers to our Leadership Team. This is an excellent opportunity for strengthening your skills, learning about non-profit management and reaching outto the community. Whether your talents and interests lie in marketing, building relationships, or getting hands-on in the kitchen or garden, we have a place for you to give back and to gain great experience.

Being on the Leadership Team is a commitment: it means agreeing to one academic year of involvement, attending regular meetings, and working consistent volunteer shifts. If you are seeking to fulfill an internship or service requirement, please contact Lindsay.

Open Positions:
Food Resourcing Assistant
Outreach Coordinator
Garden Manager
Programming Assistant
Volunteer Coordinator
Development Assistant
Event Coordinator

If you or anyone you know is interested becoming a part of the Leadership Team for CKUMB, please email lwallace@campuskitchens.org for an application and more information.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Leadership Opportunities!

Are you passionate about food justice, sustainability and the fight against hunger? Are you interested in pursuing a career in the non-profit sector? Looking for the experience that will make your resume stand out? Just looking for a meaningful way to spend your spare time?

CKUMB is recruiting student volunteers to our Leadership Team. This is an excellent opportunity for strengthening your skills, learning about non-profit management and reaching our to the community. Whether your talents and interests lie in marketing, building relationships, or getting hands-on in the kitchen or garden, we have a place for you to give back and to gain great experience.

Being on the Leadership Team is a commitment: it means agreeing to a year of involvement, attending regular meetings, and working consistent volunteer shifts. If you are seeking to fulfill an internship or service requirement, please contact Lindsay.

Open Positions:
Food Resourcing Assistant
Outreach Coordinator
Garden Manager
Programming Assistant
Volunteer Coordinator
Development Assistant

If you or anyone you know is interested becoming a part of the Leadership Team for CKUMB, please email lwallace@campuskitchens.org for an application and more information.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Giving Thanks

I am thrilled to report that Turkeypalooza 2011 was a major success – and I am full of gratitude for every single one of you who helped to make it possible! Because of your help, CKUMB was able to provide hearty Thanksgiving meals to each of 71 families at the Walter Denney Youth Center. In about a week, UMB and communities across Boston mobilized to collect 1460 pounds of food for those in need. Last Tuesday, November 22, each family took home a turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, fresh and canned vegetables and pumpkin pie.

Now that’s a feast worth being thankful for.

Enormous thanks to each and every one of our donors, volunteers, and community members who helped everything fall into place.

We’d like to extend especial gratitude to some of our most significant contributors both on and off campus:

Queenie Santos, Director of the Walter Denney Youth Center, lounging in the enormous pile of Turkeypalooza grocery bags & turkeys.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

We need YOUR help to make Turkeypalooza a success!

Turkeypalooza is rolling along at full speed and the donations are pouring in! It’s a very exciting time, and you can follow updates on Twitter @CKUMB.
But we still have a long way to go – 71 families composed of 280 people are relying on us. We have less than a week to finish up our food drive.

Please continue bringing your donations of turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie filling + non-refrigerated crusts, and canned vegetables to the 3rd floor of the Campus Center. We ALSO need reusable grocery tote bags (99¢ at most stores) for delivery. If you’re unable to make it to campus, you can always give online by clicking the Donate button above. We also accept checks and cash.

Donors are invited to a brief Thanks for Giving reception this Friday November 18 from 11:00 to 1:00. We will serve pie and coffee and provide a mini volunteer opportunity to help assemble the meal bags. When you bring a donation, you will receive a ticket.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Gearing up for Turkeypalooza 2011!

We kick off Turkeypalooza in one week! During Hunger & Homelessness Week, November 14-18, we will hold food drives all over campus to collect Thanksgiving meal items for the families we serve at the Walter Denney Youth Center.

What do we need? Turkeys, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, canned veggies and pumpkin pie makings!

How can you help? Anyone can donate or volunteer. We’re encouraging groups like your class, department, office, club or organization to form teams and hold their own mini-food-drive. Your team can sign up for a food item and work to collect as much as possible next week. Click the “Turkeypalooza” tab above to find all the details and a link to the signup page. Email me with questions: lwallace@campuskitchens.org

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Tasty Tidbits

Things have been deliciously busy for CKUMB! A quick recap of recent and upcoming adventures in campus cookin’…

Ben making magic with some tasty onion, Grace and Dan shredding piles and piles of turkey, and Troy attacking yet more turkey! Turkey seems like a recurring theme lately. More on that later…

Gorgeous leafy kale and tasty trail mix, each a part of recent meals we’ve made for the Walter Denney Youth Center. The trail mix includes banana chips, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries and M&Ms. It was a hit!

On October 22, CKUMB partnered with Mission Possible,  a day of service organized by the Office of Student Leadership & Community Engagement. OSLCE rallied dozens of students to spend their Saturday giving back to the local community. Service sites ranged from senior centers to animal shelters to Habitat for Humanity. CKUMB took on volunteers to clean up our plots in the Columbia Point Community Garden in preparation for cold weather. Not only are our plots ready for winter (and spring planting!), those amazing volunteers weeded almost the entire garden! They went above and beyond what was asked of them and truly did a favor to the community, not just Campus Kitchens. THANK YOU!

The finished product. I wish I had “before and after” photos so you could see the difference – before, you could hardly walk between the plots because it was so thick with weeds. Those volunteers did an amazing job cleaning it up!

In other news, November is just around the corner… That means we’re planning Turkeypalooza! During Hunger & Homelessness Week, November 14-18, we’ll be collecting Thanksgiving meals for the families of children we serve at the Walter Denney Youth Center. We’re asking clubs, organizations, academic departments or teams of friends to do a drive for a specific item on our list. The idea is for each team to collect as much as they can of a certain food, e.g. sweet potatoes. Then we will fill bags with turkey and fixings for families to take home. Of course, individuals are welcome to contribute as well! On Friday 11/18, we’ll host a small thank you reception for our donors. If you have any questions, please contact Lindsay.

If you have a team that wants to get involved, use this form to sign up! Simply choose the food (or money) you want to collect, and then start organizing your mini food drive. Working together, we can all bring in enough food to help struggling families enjoy this holiday season. Every child deserves a Happy Thanksgiving. Take part in making it happen.
http://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/uqbwq

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Another tasty week in Boston

Let’s recap, shall we?

Last week, we made delicious golden, oven-baked cod cakes, roasted sweet potatoes, corn on the cob and “coconut jello” for the kids at WDYC. This coconut jello phenomenon was truly fascinating… Essentially, you heat coconut milk to a simmer, stir in sugar (and Chinese 5 spice!) to taste, and then slowly dissolve gelatin into it. The ratio was used was 2 cans coconut milk to 3 envelopes of gelatin powder. Pour it into a  shallow dish and refrigerate until solid – cut into squares and enjoy! It looks like a wiggly white cube, but apparently it’s delicious.

I also visited the community garden in Harbor Point, where we’ll be growing some fresh produce and hopefully develop a place where the kids can get hands-on with their food! Studies have shown that children who participate in gardening are more likely to make healthful food choices throughout life, to continue gardening into adulthood, and are also likely to develop skills in science and interpersonal relations and a sense of self-efficacy, just to name a few. The bottom line: gardening is healthy for kids’ bodies, brains and planet. It’s a win-win. We need YOUR help getting started in the garden! Do you know all about gardening? Are you interested in teaching our volunteers and/or the kids how to garden? Would you like to be a regular garden maintenance volunteer? Or do you just have some great ideas about what we should grow this fall? Send all your thoughts, questions and ideas our way!

On Saturday, I visited the 2nd Annual Boston Food Festival – which was amazing! There was so much delicious local food to devour, with vendors ranging from local farms to gourmet chocolatiers. I also met a wonderful variety of folks representing the non-profit side of the local food movement, including several of our allies in food justice. Just to name a few, I was especially excited to talk with the people at Boston Area Gleaners, South Boston Grows, Lovin’ Spoonfuls, Boston Is Growing Gardens, City Growers and Slow Food Boston!! I’m hoping that we can collaborate with some of these amazing partners in the struggle for a better food system and healthy food for all.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

October is just around the corner…

That means every possible pumpkin recipe, perfect New England autumn weather, and exciting food happenings. Our volunteer sign-up page has been updated with opportunities starting next week and stretching throughout the coming month. Check it out here! This week, Sodexo was kind enough to donate delicious roasted turkey and fresh butternut squash, which our culinary guru Ben made into a fabulous fall casserole complete with corn and cranberries and a side of mashed potatoes. It had me dreaming of Thanksgiving 2 months early! It was the first meal we delivered to the Walter Denney Youth Center, and I’m sure the kids devoured it.

October is by far my favorite month – I wait for it all year long. I just live for the crisp, radiant weather, the spellbinding hues of the foliage, the contagious aroma of excitement in the air. And it happens to come along with some of the best food and biggest fun. Halloween may still be a long way off, but Boston will have its 2nd Annual Local Food Festival next Saturday, October first. It’s also apple-picking season – we’re cooking up some great ideas for food resourcing, so stay tuned for opportunities. Then, on October 24, we will celebrate the first ever Food Day which will advocate for real food, meaning healthy, affordable, sustainable food for all. What do you think the Campus Kitchen at UMass Boston should do to participate in Food Day? Send us your thoughts and ideas via this blog, Facebook, Twitter, or email CKUMB@campuskitchens.org. The food movement is a people-powered movement and we can’t do it without you!

P.S. The Campus Kitchens Project annual conference is also next month, October 28-30!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

CKUMB Kicks off the Fall Semester!

Welcome back, hunger-fighters! It’s finally fall, and the Campus Kitchen at UMass Boston is up and running once again with a new Coordinator, Lindsay. You can reach her at lwallace@campuskitchens.org. We’re diving right in to serving our new partner agency, the Walter Denney Youth Center, a Boys & Girls Club in Dorchester. You can sign up to volunteer here. Stay tuned for more updates and volunteer opportunities!

Feel free to drop by Lindsay’s office, located in the Campus Center, #3407 to say Hi and learn more.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Summer Camp Week #3

Hello readers! My name is Grace Rosario and I have just recently become a part of the Campus Kitchen at UMass Boston summer program.  When asked to write a blog entry on how my first experiences at CKUMB went, I was so excited but, I will admit, a smidge nervous. I’m no pro at writing and I was not sure how my entry would sound. But as I sit here and type this I’m finding it fairly easy, especially when I have something so great to write about.

Hi, I'm Grace!

Shall we start at the very beginning? We shall. I began volunteering through my high school, Archbishop Williams, in January. Since freshman year I have always been involved with the Campus Ministry program at my school, which offers service opportunities to the students.  I have grown close to the administrators there, one being my dear Mrs. O’Brien. When Mrs. O’Brien told me about CKUMB, I figured why not! It sounded great, and so I went for my first time and fell in love with not only the project itself but the people who made it possible. From then on I would go every Monday and spend an hour or so packing bags of food for about 43 underprivileged families in the Boston area. It was so much fun putting these meals together and knowing they were going to families who genuinely need them. I had such a smashing time as a volunteer that when asked by Chelsea, the CKUMB supervisor and coordinator,  if I was interested in becoming a summer intern with my great pal Dan there was no question about it, and here I am!

Dan and Me

Dan, Anna, and I (our little delivery shift crew) work for the Camp Shriver shifts, giving out 160 snacks per day, four days per week. Every Tuesday and Thursday we get together to deliver our bags to Camp Shriver, whose staff is always so thankful and happy with our deliveries. We have been doing our delivery shifts for three weeks now, so we’ve gotten the hang of it and have it down. For me, the best part of these shifts is when we finally get to the camp and give the staff the snacks for the kids.  Hopefully this week we’ll get the chance to spend some more time with the kids during snack time, which would make my day. And of course another favorite part of mine is when Dan and I are allowed camera privileges. In our defense, the walk to the Clark Athletic Building is rather lengthy and sometimes we get a little distracted.

Easily distracted...

All in all though, it is a great experience every week when I show up and I find myself looking forward to my shift when I am not there. Being a part of CKUMB is pretty awesome and I love it so much. It is definitely giving me an experience that I will never forget and that I will be grateful for for the rest of my life. I can’t wait for week four!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »