May 6, 2016

Kent State Campus Kitchen

By: Paige Brown

Kent State Campus Kitchen makes and distributes food to low income families and the homeless population around the Kent and Akron area.

The Campus Kitchen Project is a program that over 50 universities around the United States have; it uses volunteers and donations to produce healthy meals for those in need.

Students begin the process of making stuffing.

The movement started back in the 90’s in Washington, DC and has been impacting communities since 2001. Kent State became part of the project in 2011 and has continued to increase the number of meals prepared on campus every year.

Homelessness has been on the rise in Summit County for the past few years, Kent Campus Kitchen is helping eliminate the number of people going hungry.

Students at Kent State can sign up on the Kent State website to volunteer. The Campus Kitchen is located on the second floor of Beall Hall. There are positions to cook, make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, deliver food and pick up food from the public market.

All the produce is cleaned prior to using it for any meals.

Senior nutrition major, Alex Drungil is one of the student managers at Kent State. There are two student manager positions and Drungil along with Mike Brown run Campus Kitchen.

“The guys that run this are so cool, they’re really laid back and you can tell they care about what they do,” said volunteer Mariah Miller. “All the volunteers have a good time and there are no strict rules to follow.”

The campus kitchen engages around 40–50 volunteers a week. “We prepare about 300 meals a week for those in need in the surrounding communities,” said Drungil.

Students laugh and enjoy themselves while preparing meals.

According to Drungil, the food at Kent Campus Kitchen is donated from Trader Joes, Dining Services, Panera and local farmers. The meals that are prepared are then given to Kent Social Services, Center of Hope and Uproot Ministries.

There are different meals prepared each week depending on what local restaurants and stores give to the project. Regular campus kitchen volunteer, Rene, said that they typically have a meat, vegetables and produce to prepare meals with, and if they are lucky they can also prepare a dessert.

Boxes of fish that have been donated to the campus kitchen.

While many of the students volunteer simply to help the community, some professors require it for class. “My English professor required that everyone in our class come to campus kitchen at least twice over the semester,” said Miller.

Kent Campus Kitchen is an enjoyable way to give back to the community. “It’s a great environment,” said Rene. “It is fun to see the different volunteers.”

“Our main goal is to prevent food waste, prevent hunger and engage the community and students,” said Drungil.

After cutting the fish students begin preparing it to be baked.

https://www.kent.edu/oeece/campus-kitchen

http://www.campuskitchens.org/

http://akronist.com/a-closer-look-at-homelessness-in-summit-county/