February 2020 Meeting Minutes

Kitchen Cabinet
February 17, 2020
Emma Nelson, Jen Donkin, Paul Matzke, Steve Kjellgren, Kevin Birr, Molly Yunkers, Danielle Burger,
Chuck Niederriter, Bri Jol, Mark Hansen, James Dontje, Lisa Heldke, Jeri Miller, Karen Yess
Membership review – Adam Bogen, Charles Keller and Dessa Thomas were removed from the list
Food Insecurity Question: Cathy Harms student project
Steve has not heard back from where they are going with that. Do we have an issue on campus?
Cathy Harms has student group projects for marketing and offered to do a survey for us. Steve asked for
a survey on food insecurity to students. Steve has not heard back if any student groups picked it up as a
project.
PESC Update and anything else? Solar Panels? Big Hill Farm? – Jim
First meeting of the year is this Friday at 9 am. Working on updating the Gustavus Acts Strategic Plan
brochure 2.0.
Solar panels – have a viable proposal and viable places on campus. There are engineering studies
needed and being completed to make sure the site will work well. Our energy provider (SIMPA) has
goal of becoming carbon free.
Big Hill Farm – Jim will be leaving Gustavus June 30th. There is a focus group process about to start to
work on making a plan to continue the work of Big Hill Farm. There will be a training related to the
composter in March and there is documentation of the work so if there is a gap in leadership it can be
picked back up. There were two very capable student leaders last summer who could carry on the work
over the summer.
Taste of the MarketPlace – “Try It” – Lisa/Paul
Had great success. Students have made comments they don’t want to pay for an item if they don’t like
it & students didn’t realize they can ask to taste many of the items in the cafeteria. Paul & Lisa started
sampling foods that don’t tend to sell well to help promote them and get students to try them.
They set up a table and sampled 3 items on the menu – there were many students who tried items and
said “wow I like that, I wouldn’t have tried that” and got it for their meal.
Lisa has reached out and found lots of support in different positions on campus of staff to help serve and
promote their area as well. Steve had oysters, red jasmine rice and black bean burgers last week and
sampled the Cry Baby Criag’s hot sauce. Students were surprised at the protein content in the black
bean burgers and many did not know the hot sauce was available. They promoted sustainability in
harvesting oysters.
Kevin has had many students bring up what a great idea it was to do sampling of foods.
Plastic Recycling Update – Molly
In plastic film collection 6 month challenge and over 400 lb collected right now. Will win a bench at the
end and will plan to do the challenge again in the future. Molly will also see if an Adirondack chair
would be feasible instead of the bench. Facilities have been supportive in coming to pick it up weekly
and sustainability students are helping sort it. Will be expanding to a collection spot in Beck and added
one in Fine Arts. There is also interest in adding collection sites in Res Life buildings.
Fair Labor Commitment and Webinar – Molly
Gustavus became members again last year of the Fair Labor Commitment. We are still considered a fair
trade campus. Molly got approval to show a webinar on forced labor in prison camps in China. A few
vendors we have used in the past have pulled out of buying from China due to this. The webinar will be
this Thursday at 10 am, location to be determined.
Forest Stewardship Council – Karen Yess or Steve : $1700 to use logo but don’t. Should we drop?
We are preparing for an audit in the print shop with the Forest Stewardship Council. The paper we use
is certified. There is a logo we could be using to promote this but haven’t been using it. There is a cost
of $1700 to use the logo so question was posed should we spend the money. It was recommended to
talk to marketing to see if they would want to promote this and discuss at next PESC meeting.
Composting on Campus – Compost Ready – Tim/Peter/Rachel
Jim – They are shaping up a plan to do more compost collection on campus by having the group already
picking up recycling do more on campus.
Res life has posed the question if we are collecting compost on campus why are we doing Gustie Ware?
They are concerned with all of the collection bins being put in student dorms. There is an energy
resource used to make the Gustie Ware, but they have also lasted many years. More needs to be looked
at with this.
Question was posed – how do you get students to care about sorting waste and composting?
Next Meeting – March 9th, 2020