As a Food and Sustainability Fellow in Carleton’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement, I work with students and community members to increase access to healthy and affordable food. One of the community partners I work with is the Northfield Community Action Center Food Shelf, a local food bank that has been serving Northfield community members since 1985.
Every week I coordinate two Carleton student volunteers to help unload trucks and take inventory there. The Food Shelf currently supports over 480 Northfield families with 55 thousand pounds of food per month, and Steph and the other staff at the Food Shelf really value students’ contributions.
Because the Food Shelf purchases food at a reduced rate, it benefits immensely from monetary donations. So, several weeks ago we organized the Café Fast to offer Carleton students an outlet to easily donate money to the Food Shelf. Café Fast is a fundraising mechanism sponsored by the CSA (Carleton Student Association) and Bon Appetit Management Company that allows students to donate the value of their meal in the dining hall to a given cause of charity. I calculated that with the monetary equivalent of just one Carleton lunch, the Northfield Food Shelf can buy 12 pounds of food. That translates to roughly 9 meals - more than a week’s worth of lunches for a family in need!
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Several volunteers spent the week up to October 18th, the day of the Café Fast, tabling in the Sayles-Hill Campus Center to spread the word about the Food Shelf and the huge power that donating just one meal can have. Aside from encouraging students to donate their meal we had the opportunity to speak with them about the Food Shelf and the wide community that it supports.
Not only did we come away from the week with over 500 dollars raised, but we encouraged a rising interest in volunteer service. While I was thrilled about the money we raised, my biggest take away from the Café Fast was seeing the willingness and enthusiasm of Carleton students to donate their lunch and time to the rest of the community.