SLU Community Turns Up to Serve at Campus Kitchen
06/12/2019
As they prepared eggplant parmesan, zucchini bread and mouthwatering turkey meatloaf, volunteers from across Saint Louis University’s campus have ensured that their neighbors in the surrounding Midtown community have not missed meals as part of SLU’s Campus Kitchen.
And as summer heats up, the kitchen is seeking more helpers to keep the food coming.
How to Help This Summer
- Although many of students are off campus for the summer, Campus Kitchen will continue to operate during June, July and August. Volunteers are needed and multiple service opportunities and shifts are open this summer.
- The kitchen is in special need of volunteers on Sundays for its “Food Recovery” program. Volunteers working on Food Recovery days will help reduce food waste by picking up food at Trader Joe’s in Brentwood and by unloading, sorting and updating the kitchen’s inventory at Reinert Hall.
- Food Recovery Sundays run from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m.
To volunteer individually, or to organize a group service shift, contact Melissa Apprill.
Serving Beyond Campus to Keep Food on Tables
Campus Kitchen is staffed by SLU students, staff and faculty members who work to understand and address the complexities of food insecurity, poverty, sustainability and nutrition. SLU’s kitchen was the chosen as the pilot site for Campus Kitchen in the country. There are now more than 50 Campus Kitchens at colleges and universities around the country.
During the spring 2019 semester, teams of volunteers from SLU’s Divisions of Student Development, Information Technology Services and Development turned out in force to pick up kitchen staples, prepare food and deliver meals.
“Because of the SLU community’s generosity, we have been able to deliver and prepare about 400 meals a week for our neighbors who face food insecurity,” Melissa Apprill, Campus Kitchen coordinator in SLU’s Center for Service and Community Engagement, said.
According to Apprill, the kitchen has also been able to work with three community partners to deliver fresh produce to newly-settled immigrants and refugees, families embarking on new lives beyond domestic violence situations and adults returning to school.
Learn more about Campus Kitchen and check out other ways to serve at SLU.
Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers nearly 13,000 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.
Story by Amelia Flood, University Marketing and Communications