Kitchen Cabinet Meeting Minutes March 2016 Posted on March 16th, 2016 by

Brady Kelley, Margo Druschel, Gwen Saliares, Danny Pavek, Erin Baumann, George Elliott, Steve Kjellgren, Audi Dickey, Molly Yunkers,  Abby Nistler, Hayley Nemmers, Jeri Miller, Jim Dontje, Paul Matzke, Lisa Heldke, Kaitlin Bicek, Caitlyn Rese, Jana Elliott, Patrick Neri

 

Brainstorming for Questions and Topics around the Table conversation that is happening on the Wednesday after Kitchen Cabinet meets

We have been getting a lot of foot traffic and buzz around the conversation. Lisa is asking for new faces and new questions. Steve had a great idea for March – do a food spin on March Madness. Paul and Margo volunteered to get the conversation started on Wednesday and would gladly take more help.

 

SAVE

SAVE will be starting a bike share program on campus with the use of Coke Grant funds. The bikes are on campus and awaiting labels.  SAVE is willing to have them out for the next Wednesday conversation. It was also suggested that a display of the skis go up as well.

 

Dining Service News

Steve is still looking for an interested party that would be willing to transport the baked goods we can no longer use to Minnesota State-Mankato. In particular this needs to be student driven and thus far no one has stepped forward. We may not be able to make it happen this year as we are running out of time but we will keep it on the agenda for next year. Steve will be attending a farm to market conference this morning – Renewing the Countryside. This is being sponsored at MVAC where the Hub is and is coordinated by Katie, a Gustie Grad.

 

Big Hill Farm

Applications are due on Friday and it looks like there are plenty of applicants.  Jim has been working on getting things done in the Greenhouse with spring right around the corner. Jim was even able to plant some items last week with students. The back wall of the Greenhouse is now insulated.

 

The Greens

The Greens have two big programs in the works. SNL and Earth Week. The theme of SNL is Summer of 69. There will be finger painting, Henna and a band. The Greens will also make use of leftover cardboard and there will be a contest involving chariots made out of cardboard and using rolling office chairs that will then be raced around the track.

Earth Week activities include an earth hour bonfire, the Sustainability Fair on Thursday, and maybe an activity with CAB such as decorating your own flower pot. Kitchen Cabinet also got a sneak peek at the cool reusable bags that are being sewn from old banners that Molly has saved from the BookMark.  The idea would be to sell them and then donate the money to an earth friendly cause. Much buzz was generated from this very creative and clever idea.

 

The Coke Grant

Steve gave Kitchen Cabinet a brief history of the Coke Grant which was much appreciated by Kitchen Cabinet members that had no idea how the coke grant even came about. This is the 4th year of our 10 year contract with Coke. Five years ago the KC put together an invitation to the campus when the current Coke contract was up and there was much discussion surrounding pop (who knew). Kitchen Cabinet even discussed not having pop on campus!  We figured that was not going to fly on campus and we are not a big enough campus to have both Coke and Pepsi. So we had the conversation of looking at each companies ethics, do they give back to the community, are they responsible to their workers, how do they impact other countries.  So the question was posed to Coke and Pepsi:  in addition to you providing your soft drinks, what else can you do to be a partner in our core values and education? We invited the companies to look deeper. Pepsi did not really get it. Coke appeared to get it a little more and gave us a price and a service and basically said here is 50,000 dollars a year to go towards your operating budget. Then we will give you 10,000 dollars a year in student scholarship money. We will also provide 20,000 dollars a year in projects that your students can initiate. That is how we ended up with $20,000 in Coke grant money. Steve did note that since this has all taken place the 3 of the 4 people at Coke that started this and approved it are no longer in that position so it is also re-educating Coke staff yearly. The Coke Grant Committee is currently evaluating how to continue to facilitate the awarding of the grant money as it seems as if the true message of the money is getting lost in the translation. How do we let students know what the grant money is intended for, how can they best write a grant, how can they follow through implementing the money and how can they best present what they did at the end of the project. There will be a meeting over Spring Break at 9:00 am on Wednesday if anyone is interested in providing feedback.

 

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