New Elon students package 40,000 meals to fight global hunger

Elon University’s affiliate of The Campus Kitchens Project, a national organization focused on hunger, led a meal-packing event on Saturday for nearly 300 new and transfer students with an interest in local service experiences that make global impacts.

Campus Kitchen at Elon University hosted its annual “Stop Hunger Now” activity in McKinnon Hall on Aug. 30, 2014, when students packed more than 40,000 meals consisting of rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables, and essential vitamins and minerals.

“We are here this morning because some people will not eat today,” said Darron Stover ’93 G’95, program manager for Stop Hunger Now, a North Carolina-based relief agency that has delivered more than 158 million meals since 1998 to dozens of nations around the world. “Over 25,000 people around the world die every day from hunger-related issues, and 16,000 of them are children.”

Meals will be distributed to school feeding programs, orphanages and medical clinics to help break the cycle of poverty by providing important nutrients in conjunction with education, skill development and health care.

“As I was packing food today, I could not help but think about how this connects with the struggles in ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’ (the 2014-15 Elon Common Reading),” said freshman Sarah Chadwell. “I hope that our class can continue to help play a role in ending the suffering of others.”

Junior Abbey Riesett, CKEU’s student director; sophomore Iliana Brodsky, the Truitt Center for Religious & Spiritual Life’s student intern; and CKEU project coordinator Steve Caldwell welcomed participants to the event and described how the day’s work connected with broader themes.

“Service and community-building are rooted in many faith traditions and we want to help you become more socially aware through opportunities and conversations like you will experience today,” Brodsky said.

Student leaders from Residence Life and the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement led participants in personal reflection. Small group discussions explored causes behind hunger and introduced students to the array of the programs offered through the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement that allow them to work collaboratively with local, regional, national and global partners and engage in critical and creative thinking to identify and address community needs.

“Opportunities like this provide students with the chance to find out how they can make a difference and engage as global citizens,” said junior Rihana Spinner.

The Stop Hunger Now event was a collaboration involving the Center for Leadership, Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement, New Student and Transition Programs, Residence Life, Resident Student Association, and the Truitt Center for Religious & Spiritual Life.

The annual meal packing event is one of many CKEU opportunities that engage students in addressing hunger and food insecurity. Locally, the organization partners with community agencies such as Allied Churches of Alamance County to assist the 17 percent of citizens in Alamance County who are food insecure.

During the 2013-2014 academic year, CKEU prepared nearly 5,000 meals for local residents and facilitated the donation of more than 11,000 pounds of food collected by Elon students, faculty, and staff to the Allied Churches community food pantry.

CKEU was designed on a model utilizing food donated from Aramark services to prepare meals for local residents in need. The organization has expanded operations through a partnership with the Center for Environmental Studies to harvest vegetables from Loy Farm which are used in weekly meal preparation and to provide fresh produce to the Allied Churches pantry.

“Campus Kitchen exists here at Elon to involve students with innovative and sustainable ways of addressing hunger,” Riesett said.

– Story submitted by Bob Frigo of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement