By: Victoria Ibiwoye
As part of my learning experience here at the University of Georgia, I got to volunteer with the Campus Kitchen, a partner of the Senior Hunger Coalition project in Athens. The Campus Kitchens Project is an innovative way to reduce food wastage and address hunger, a key component of the Sustainable Development Goals. On university and high school campuses across the country, students transform unused food from dining halls, grocery stores, restaurants, and farmers’ markets into meals for their community. Food waste and senior hunger are issues affecting the community of Athens. 40% of US food is wasted each year and 1 in 5 residents of Athens-Clarke county residents don’t know where their food will come from. The state of Georgia ranks 8th for senior hunger in the nation.
Myself and four other Mandela Washington fellows from South Africa, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and Guinea had the opportunity to visit the Campus Kitchen in Athens to volunteer and also learn about their system. When we arrived, we were welcomed by three student volunteers at UGA and together, we prepared meals that would be served to the community the following day. It was an exciting experience for me I enjoyed every bit of the time spent there. The service project made me think of my privilege and I couldn’t have been happier for the opportunity I had to pay it forward. It also gave me a deep understanding of issues facing communities such as Athens and how organizations are taking initiative to address them. Connecting the lessons from our class activity on civic engagement, I learned that we don’t necessarily have to own resources, we just have to use them. The Campus Kitchen model was a great example.
Going back home, I will apply this example in our strategic action plan. A larger part of our program involves organizing workshops for students and teachers in disadvantaged communities, and from the Campus Kitchen, I learned that we can collaborate to share resources with other organizations or companies working towards a shared vision. What was unexpected was the realization that the aging population can sometimes be neglected in a developed country like the United States. It made me reflect on my own community and think of a similar project, to provide care and show kindness to those who have nothing to fall back on.
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