November 1, 2010

Campus Kitchen gets freezer from Housing, Dining Services

The Campus Kitchen at JHU, a student-run organization dedicated to using surplus food to provide nutritious meals for hungry men, women and children in the Baltimore area, now has more freezer space, thanks to Homewood’s Department of Housing and Dining Services. The new freezer will allow the organization to store more food and for greater lengths of time. Previously, it used a single freezer in Levering Hall, which needed to be constantly cleared out to make room for new donations.

Since August, Housing and Dining has also donated more than 900 pounds of food to the group, which either cooks meals in off-site kitchens to serve to clients, or delivers edibles directly to local groups that work to relieve hunger.

The Campus Kitchens Project is a nationwide organization that partners with schools and anti-hunger programs. It currently works with 25 high schools, colleges and universities to share campus kitchen space, recover food from cafeterias and engage students as volunteers who prepare and deliver meals to the community.

The JHU chapter, created in 2009, also offers nutrition and culinary arts education programs. In its first year, the group donated more than 7,500 pounds of raw food and delivered 3,451 prepared meals. More than 190 students have volunteered their time.

Dining Services and Aramark, JHU’s food service provider, have made regular contributions to the organization, from food to cookware.