5-college Potluck recap

Last night, we had a fun gathering of mostly Mount Holyoke and Hampshire students for a potluck. As we ate and shared delicious home-cooked food, we discussed about the Real Food Summit coming up at Yale on Nov. 3-4th. In addition, we shared projects that are currently happening on each of the college's campuses revolving around the food movement. Below are the notes from the discussion:

Attendance: approx. 30 students from MHC and Hampshire

Agenda/Minutes:

Cooking/Greeting/Eating/Mingling

Group sharing on what the other five colleges are doing

Group breakup answering questions about Real Food Summit at Yale in November and action steps afterwards

Group discussion about what was discussed in the smaller groups

WHAT DO WE WANT TO BRING TO THE SUMMIT?
(These are questions and things to share with the other colleges in the Northeast)

Hampshire:

Integrating and bringing local food (BETTER food) to Dining Services

Hear about how other schools are networking

How do other schools interact with Dining Services, Student life, and how connect that to life after college

Share with other school our present actions with the farm, co-op, etc.

Mount Holyoke:

Hear about how other schools are dealing with seasonality (i.e. what do we eat when it’s not in season?)

How are other school funding for their farm/garden and food in dining halls?

Increase and connect with the surrounding community about local food

How can relate our space and what we’re doing on campus to the larger picture of the food movement

How to keep this movement going – passing on the torch to incoming students

How to communicate with administration and to end up with mutual goals

Incorporating the community building and fun aspect

How are other colleges dealing with timeline issues and keeping on schedule

WHAT DO WE WANT TO BRING BACK FROM THE SUMMIT?

Hampshire:

How can the campus café be more student-run

Networking skills

Domestic fair-trade

How to increase publicity

Ideas on how to communicate to Dining Services effectively

How to create levels of networking (i.e. local to regional)

How to get more hands-on student involvement (i.e. work-study or volunteers on food prep)

How to engage with other students and faculty who are not already involved with this

Continue 5-college interaction (have a post-summit conference!)

Mount Holyoke College:

How to create numeric goals with local food in Dining Halls (i.e. currently we have 4% local food. We should set a higher percentage goal!)

Bridging gaps between other orgs. & groups of different class, race, culture.

Communicate importance of food and making connections to food (i.e. Food is connected to health, ecology, culture, community, economics…so much more!)

Food and climate change

Food and personal food choices and its impacts

ACTION STEPS AFTER SUMMIT?

monthly 5 college mtgs

5 college conference with farmers and local producers and distributors

recruitment

connecting private vs. public schools

awareness and getting involved with the 5 college Dining Services committee

create a J-term class

collaborative 5 college & local vendors research about food distribution

give out CISA directories of local farms/markets

have a farm tour of the 5 college area!

Collaborating with processors and distributors

5 college network infrastructure

5 college agricultural/food certificate

create a 5 college contact/directory of point people and student orgs and community orgs involved with this food movement

Thank you to those who came and who shared your time and food!!!
Special thanks to those Mount Holyoke volunteers who helped cook, and clean!!

TENTATIVE POST-Summit 5 college Potluck/Meeting

Organizers: Gwen from Hampshire!, Morgan and Guenther from MHC!

Where: Hampshire

Date: Friday, November 9th (exact time TBD)

Goals:

Delegates share what they learned from the Summit

Elaborate on our Action Goals (from above) and delegate responsibilities

Plan the 5-college conference