Dear Augsburg University Community,

We are thrilled to announce an exciting transformation within our Program. Formerly known as LEAD (Leaders for Equity, Action, and Democracy) Fellows, we are proud to introduce the Bonner Community Leaders (BCL) program, in partnership with the Bonner Foundation. Whereas students in the program were previously referred to as “LEAD Fellows” they are now “Bonner Leaders.”  This transition marks a significant milestone in our commitment to fostering leadership, scholarship, and social justice on our campus and in the communities we get to be a part of.

As we deepen our collaboration with the Bonner Network, we embrace a renewed vision for the BCL program, building upon the foundation laid by LEAD Fellows. This shift brings forth a wealth of resources and opportunities that the Bonner network offers, including access to national conferences and trainings for both our staff and students. This expanded partnership will enhance the impact of our program and provide an even stronger support system for our justice-minded cohort.

The BCL program remains rooted in its core values of civic engagement, community-engaged learning, and the pursuit of a more just world. Our program will continue to embody these values as we continue collaborating with the communities surrounding Augsburg University. By forging meaningful relationships and working alongside community members, BCL participants will actively contribute to building a more equitable society.

One of the key advantages of our new partnership is the opportunity for deeper engagement within the Bonner Network. Students in the BCL program will have access to national conferences, where they can connect with like-minded individuals from across the country, exchange ideas, and gain insights into innovative approaches to community engagement. These conferences will serve as invaluable platforms for learning, networking, and amplifying the impact of our collective efforts.

We are excited about the potential for growth and development that these resources will bring to the BCL program and our wider Augsburg community.

The Bonner Community Leaders program aligns with Augsburg University’s mission to educate students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. By participating in the BCL program, students will deepen their understanding of social justice issues, develop practical skills through community-based work, and contribute to positive change in our world.

With these changes– WE ARE RECRUITING! We invite students with at least two years left at Augsburg University to apply for this transformative program. The BCL program offers an immersive four-year experience, providing a unique opportunity to build lasting relationships with a cohort of justice-minded peers and dedicated staff members who will support students throughout their academic journey. Visit the “Apply to be a Bonner” page to learn how to get involved.

We are excited to embark on this new chapter with the Bonner Community Leaders program, and we believe it will further strengthen our commitment to educational excellence, community engagement, and social justice. We appreciate all the love, support and advocacy the Augsburg community has shown this program over the years, and we look forward to building the capacity of this program together!

 

In solidarity,

LaToya Taris-James

Program Manager

Bonner Community Leaders

Bill loved donating any money he had to SABO and helping with dishwashing, singing and sharing his joy for living. 

He was quite the interesting character so I wanted to share some background on him, especially for any interested students and to expand people’s understanding and appreciation of mental illness. 

 

Bill, William Kenneth Ogren, was born April 6, 1950 in Washington D.C. to proud parents Marjorie and Ken Ogren. Bill, and his two younger siblings James and Jan grew up in Northern Virginia. His father worked as an agricultural diplomat and the family moved to Paris, France in 1967. Bill graduated from the American School of Paris in 1969. While in France he explored The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and worked a summer at Heathrow airport in London, England. He loved art and became friends with artists and enjoyed showing people around museums. 

 

Both of Bill’s parents grew up on farms in Minnesota and so he chose Augsburg College to be near his beloved grandmother Emma Ogren. He went to Augsburg College in MPLS from 1969 to 1973. He was so well-spoken and well-liked that family and friends thought he might become a diplomat, like his father, or maybe a curator of a museum or art gallery. 

 

But in 1972 his life radically changed. It became apparent that he had some kind of illness that changed his brain function. He couldn’t communicate or process information they way he used to. He was homeless for a while and lost contact with family. Nevertheless, Bill managed to come through this time with a focus on being kind, generous, and helpful. He rarely used a phone, no longer drove a car, and never used a computer in his life. But he could wash dishes, set up tables for banquets, and make people happy. He worked at restaurants and hotels, often receiving recognition as Employee of the Month and in 1977, Employee of the Year for the Registry Hotel in MPLS. 

He reconnected with Augsburg College and was active in the campus ministry and the campus kitchen. He delivered meals with a song and enthusiasm. He loved getting to know visiting students and could remember everyone’s name and something significant about them. 

When his mind no longer functioned as it used to, he opened his heart.  

He died peacefully in his sleep on March 10, 2021 just shy of his 71rst birthday.

Nell Gerke

Graduated in 2019 – environmental studies major with an urban studies minor

 

What sparked your interest in Campus Kitchen?

• I joined Campus Kitchen through the LEAD Fellows Program; I talked with a woman who worked with Campus Kitchen at the time, and she talked about how much she got to work in the community, and I think that’s what really got me interested in it in the first place. I was already pretty interested in food systems, but the whole community aspect really sold me on CK.

What were the biggest challenges you faced working with Campus Kitchen?

• Finding students to do shifts with me! When there wasn’t a social work class where students needed to fulfill hours or something like that, I didn’t see a lot of people signing up for Campus Kitchen volunteering.

  What were some of the highlights of your time with CK?

• I can say that usually if I went into a meal shift feeling funky, I usually felt out of the funk after the meal shift, so it was always very healing. I love working in the community garden– that was always a highlight. It felt really good to have that connection with the community, and I had never gardened before. So I learned so much from everyone around me all the time, which was very cool. I loved the garden. I loved hosting the Garden Party food storytelling event too.

Skills you gained?

• I learned how to build community and relationships.
• I learned to be pretty scrappy with making food, just because we would always wind up with random stuff, and that would be my dinner. Making something out of what you have around is a great skill- that’s how I still cook my meals.

What are you currently up to and does it connect to CK?

• I work at a food Coop in Northfield, but I am also running for the Board of Directors, because I want to be more involved in my community and have a larger presence. 

Other things involved you were involved with at Augsburg?

• I played softball. I was a LEAD fellow. I was an RA briefly.

Many incredible student leaders have worked with Augbsurg’s Campus Kitchen (CK) program over the years. Current CK student leaders Alana Goodson and Chouneng Khang interviewed several CK alumni to learn more about their experiences with the program.

 

Britta Andress

Majored in sociology, graduated 2019 

 

What sparked your interest in Campus Kitchen?

(Andress): I was in the LEAD Fellows program.

 

What were the biggest challenges you faced working with Campus Kitchen?

(Andress): Having to work within our budget was a challenge. We wanted to give the youth at the Brian Coyle Center better quality food but we were not able to afford it. 

 

 What were some of the highlights of your time with CK?

(Andress): The people, especially everyone on the Campus Kitchen student team working together and not being individualized/separated due to roles or titles.

 

Takeaways/Skills you gained?

(Andress): CK taught me that even small acts of awareness and change can have lasting impacts.

Giving back to the community is something I learned to really value.

 

What are you up to now? How does it connect to CK? 

(Andress): Meal prep is definitely something I still use and will always use to this day. So don’t underestimate its value. 

 

Other things you were involved with at Augsburg?

(Andress): I had a job outside of campus and was also a student research assistant for two of my professor independent research projects. 

Advice for current, future, past CK interns/volunteers?

(Andress): I learned to enjoy the process and not to participate just for the result. A lot of times when people volunteer, they do it to have it on their resume or for class credit. With Campus Kitchen, it’s important to stay in the present and see the impact and change happen over time because making a difference isn’t always a linear process. 

 

In November, Augsburg was awarded a grant through the Minneapolis Health Department’s COVID‐19 Community Food Security Supports program, for Campus Kitchen in partnership with People’s Center and West Bank CDC!

Campus Kitchen at Augsburg is a food access program that is part of the Sabo Center. The program addresses food access on our campus and in our surrounding neighborhood. We’ve worked with our community partners in Cedar-Riverside since 2003, serving, eating, and growing food with neighbors. In March 2020, the Sabo Center launched the Neighborhood Food Initiative in partnership with M Health Fairview. The Neighborhood Food initiative brings together a variety of community partners to support collaborative approaches that increase access to healthy food in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Our ability to quickly respond to the City of Minneapolis grant opportunity is a great example of how collaborative efforts supported by the Neighborhood Food Initiative can result in positive outcomes for the community.  

In response to COVID-19-driven food insecurity, Campus Kitchen has expanded our partnerships with Health Commons, West Bank CDC, and People’s Center. This summer, we began distributing food weekly to the West Bank CDC and People’s Center. We regularly receive feedback from our neighbors and partner organizations that the groceries we provide make a difference for residents’ ability to access high-quality, healthy foods. Over recent months, Augsburg’s food distribution program with West Bank CDC and People’s Center has strengthened and grown. Many households in Cedar-Riverside now see this service as a key piece of meeting their basic food needs.

In order to expand this work, we sought funds to purchase food and personal hygiene and household items, as well as refrigerators and other infrastructure to support this ongoing work. Because our program operates on a small budget, we rely primarily on recovered food items, which limits choice and thus our ability to meet residents’ specific needs. This new funding has enhanced our ability to provide our neighbors with the specific staple foods and other items that they request on a regular basis. New equipment, including shiny new refrigerators and freezers, will allow Campus Kitchen, People’s Center, and West Bank CDC to expand our respective capacities so that we can continue to work together to provide basic food and supplies to our neighbors in the long-term.

The Campus Cupboard and Food Distribution During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Nick Keener

 

In late March, when quarantine shut down school and businesses, food sourcing for students and families became more difficult. With our resources and partnerships throughout the Twin Cities, we’ve been able to help provide dozens of families with donated produce from Mill City Farmers Market and Twin Cities Food Justice, as well as surplus essentials and groceries from the Loaves and Fishes warehouse and the North County Food Alliance on a weekly basis for the past few months of quarantine. 

Our outreach starts with our students who remained on campus during quarantine with twice-weekly grocery drop off, then to students and staff living in the Twin Cities with a weekly grocery home delivery, finally out into the community with weekly produce drop-offs and collecting surplus donations, groceries, and self-care products to the neighborhood community center and food shelf, Brian Coyle, as well as The People’s Center Clinic, West Bank CDC, and Health Commons.

We’ve had to adapt and grow how certain elements of our program operate in order to stay safe on all ends. We have been committed to wearing masks, gloves, and sanitizing our hands and surfaces throughout the process. We developed an online ordering system for students on campus to use to request groceries– one we hope to continue using as classes resume and students move back onto campus. Our goal is to make healthy food safely accessible to everyone, be it at our university, in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, or throughout the Twin Cities.  

On a personal level, I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunity to keep busy and be able to work and help during this confusing and anxiety-inducing time. Thankfully. most of our work takes place outside so we’ve still been able to make connections with new volunteers and community members. In Campus Kitchen, we tend to think of food as a way of bringing people together and connecting with one another. I think this is more important now than ever.

 

 

This entry is from Chouneng Khang, a Campus Kitchen student employee.  If you would like to support Campus Kitchen’s work, feel free to donate through Augsburg’s donation page. You can designate your donation to Other>Campus Kitchen.

 

Nyob Zoo and hello! My name is Chouneng Khang. I go by the pronouns He/Him/His and I am a Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Major with a Communications Minor. Today’s topic is my experience working with Campus Kitchen.

I’ve spent two years so far working with Campus Kitchen, and during that time I have learned quite a bit– especially about stepping out of my comfort zone and about the Cedar Riverside neighborhood.  I’ve also learned about the different communities and groups around and within the Cedar- Riverside neighborhood, such as the Soup-For-You Program that hosts free lunches for anyone. They even provide clothing donations for people who need clothes. 

I’ve always been a bubbly, talkative person who likes to ramble on and on about things.  However, when I started working with Campus Kitchen during my first year of college, all that bubbly, talkative energy had gone away.  I had to build it back up.  That’s where my involvement in Campus Kitchen comes in. Through my work with Campus Kitchen, I was serving meals in the neighborhood, helping run the Campus Cupboard, and hosting my own open cooking hours in the Food Lab.  All of these activities required me to talk to people and build rapport, because we want the people that frequent these activities to return week after week and feel comfortable.

Brian Coyle is a community center within the Cedar Riverside neighborhood that offers many programs for youth. They teach teens how to use different technologies, such as sewing machines, computers, cameras, printers, and more, help with homework, provide a safe space to hang out, helps prepare them for post high-school education, etc. Through my job with Campus Kitchen, I bring dinner to Brian Coyle a couple of times each week. 

You might be wondering,  how does this relate to helping me build up my bubbly, talkative energy? Well, part of the dinner delivery shift is that we would sit down with the community center members who attend and share a meal with them, which of course, means that we engage in conversation and build relationships.  At first, I was overwhelmed and afraid to speak because I no longer had the courage to.  However, most of those who attend our CK dinner deliveries are energetic teenagers who want to broaden their experiences with different people and have many connections.  So it really wasn’t that hard for me to start speaking when one of the teenagers asked about my ethnicity and if I could help them learn my native language. Through experiences like this, Campus Kitchen has not only provided me with a steady income as a college student, but has also helped me gain new skills.