Sabo Center News

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. 

Many incredible student leaders have worked with Augsburg’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. 

Yasmin ‘2015: Biology Major and Religion Minor

What sparked your interest in Campus Kitchen?

• I wanted to be a part of helping our neighbors in need. 
• I love what Campus Kitchen stands for! I admire its mission to serve the community that surrounds the campus by making healthy food accessible.

What was your role with CK?

• My role was to help build sustainability and capacity building. I recruited volunteers, organized events that educated others about food equity and provided ways people could access healthy foods.  
• I attended food deliveries at sites like Ebenezer Towers and Brian Coyle. 
• I hosted an event where I invited special speaker LaDonna Redmond, a food justice advocate to discuss issues surrounding food equity. 
• I helped with fundraising through Give to the Max for Campus Kitchen. 
• I explored different modalities for volunteers to participate in reflection so that volunteers get a chance to understand the impact of their volunteering. 
• I worked in the community garden. I coordinated with gardeners about their plots and addressed any issues that they had.  

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

• I attended the Food Waste & Hunger Summit in Arkansas. I learned about different ways we can combat ending hunger and poverty. It was a fun road trip! At the end of my year of service, I also presented at the 2016 Nonprofit Leadership Conference about my experience with Campus Kitchen and Health Commons. The theme of the conference was courageous engagement across differences which fit perfectly with my experience!

• I learned leadership, communication, time management, planning & organizing, teamwork, conflict resolution, empathy, adaptability & flexibility, networking, and cultural awareness.

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

• I’m attending the American University of Antigua School of Medicine. I’m currently in my 3rd year of clinical rotations in New York.  
• Working with Campus Kitchen solidified my pursuit in working in community health and focusing on serving underrepresented communities. 

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

• Get to know the community you’re serving by building relationships. Take time to listen to community members’ stories– their stories matter.
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you have any cultural or religious differences when making food and delivering food with the community members. They love having conversations with students. 

The sabo scholars was a Yearlong student seminar exploring civic and public life.

The Sabo Scholar program provided a unique opportunity for students to engage in civic life, study the political process, work on public policy, and explore careers in public service. The cohort met weekly for an academic seminar and civic engagement project work with the cohort. Augsburg students in their 2^nd or 3^rd year with an interest in politics, community, and civic life were encouraged to take part.

This program is now closed. The legacy of the Sabo Scholars program is continued through the Bonner Community Leaders program, and students interested in exploring these topics are encouraged to apply!

The Sabo Scholars was one of three public leadership scholars programs at Augsburg, alongside the Christensen Scholars and the Interfaith Scholars.

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.

Augsburg’s commitment to community service and engagement is long-standing and deeply held. Since 1992, day undergraduate students have participated in service projects on City Engagement Day, even before they’ve had their first class. The COVID-19 pandemic requires us to press pause on City Engagement Day this year, but our commitment to community building is unwavering. Instead of sending hundreds of incoming students out to serve Minneapolis neighborhoods and organizations, we are encouraging students, faculty, and staff to engage with their local communities in ways that are meaningful to them personally. 

For those looking for local options for engagement, Sabo Center staff members have compiled this list of local opportunities for community service. We will update this document as we learn of new opportunities, and we have not vetted every one, so take care in considering COVID-19 safety practices, the organization’s capacity to host groups, and other key questions.

If you’d like to suggest an addition to this list, please email us at sabocenter@augsburg.edu. 

Though school has been rather quiet since shut down in march, the Environmental Stewardship Coordinators has been busy this summer taking action that will direct sustainability related goals in the fall… and beyond.

For readers who are not familiar, the Environmental Stewardship Coordinators is a small group of interns whose goal is to promote a campus culture of sustainability, in partnership with the Environmental Action Committee and Environmental Stewardship Committee. The sustainability model at Augsburg encompasses personal wellness, social systems, natural environment, and economics so there is a wide possibility of action steps and angles to approach work from. This summer the group has been focusing on institutional commitments, community outreach, and student organizing. Here is a short summary of current projects and future planning.

Institutional Commitments

Augsburg became a charter signatory to the Second Nature Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2007. This means that we are committed to taking climate action as a university. For us, this action looks like a climate action plan (CAP). The goal of a CAP is to lay out specific goals to help mitigate climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is a daunting task that requires time and input from our community. The previous CAP was called “Green By 2019” which has groundbreaking initiatives but fell short in completion which is why it is so important to rewrite and shift our energy towards new goals.

Community Outreach

Connecting to our community is extremely valuable to our students… and our university. The Sabo Center, Campus Kitchen, and the Environmental Stewardship Coordinators are working on crafting a campaign that will help students see the importance of supporting local businesses and shifting personal purchasing habits as well as looking at how the university supports the community. This summer there has also been food/supply drives which provided a list of donation items that had sustainability sourced options to help shift personal purchasing towards more ethical options.

Student Organizing

Having a platform for our students to be engaged within sustainability is important to us! We are working on completing more social media posts for how you can be involved around campus, modeling specific handouts for first year students, co-creating a food justice class for 2 credits, and planning ahead for how we can stay connected even if we can’t be in person. We even reached out to alumni of the university to ask them to share their insights on sustainability to make an interview series. This plethora of knowledge would help us create a roadmap for sustainability at Augsburg.

Now what?

As one of the ESC members, I would say this summer work has been uplifting. In such troubling times it is good to be reminded of what Augsburg is about and why I want to continue to go to education here. Sometimes some of these projects seem bigger than me or very out of reach… but that is the exciting part! In our current times we are called to make systemic changes, we need to go farther than we have ever gone before to ensure sustainability- because that means social justice, environmental care, community wellness and economic prosperity. The time is NOW to make change and being a part of this group I feel like we are making meaningful change and paving a way to get there.