Kitchen Cabinet
September 23, 2013
Present: Lisa Heldke, Steve Kjellgren, Paul Matzke, Rebecca Hare, Saskia Raether,Robbie Bragg, Jim Dontje, Margo Druschell, Mark Hanson, Jessica Braun, Pearl Leonard Rock, Charlie Potts, George Elliott
The meeting began with an introduction of group members and how their lives intersect with the Kitchen Cabinet. The Kitchen Cabinet is in its seventh year of existence. The Cabinet has been involved closely or loosely with a number of cool initiatives – most recently the composter, Gustieware, and has been a big supporter of the Coca Cola grant initiatives. The Cabinet acts as an advisory council to the campus community.
Lisa talked about our goals for this year. We really do not have any big projects in the works. So we may want to look at the items we have not attended to directly and see what we should focus on.
Tomorrow morning from 10:30 – 1:00 Tiny Footprint Café will be in the Courtyard. Margo did a great job explaining fair trade and how that differs from direct trade. They use a direct trade model as opposed to fair trade. Direct trade is great when you trust your purveyor – they deal directly with coffee farmers. They pay them a fair wage and help with schools, care for the land. Margo also talked about us becoming a Fair Trade Campus – we are really nowhere that we want to be yet. We are hoping to work on that in the future.
Kitchen Cabinet was able to follow our compost pile out to the composter and shed. Jim did a great job in explaining the process and how it works and how the campus works together to make this happen. Steve talked about phasing out the disposables that are not compostable. It is more difficult than you think and more costly than you would imagine.