CUFSP Meeting Recap 2.10.081. Community Garden: We ranked our choices for gardening spaces as follows:
Campus green space
Rooftop
Overgrown garden at senior center at W 111th St. and Amsterdam Ave.
Enclosed plot behind environmental stewardship office
We also discussed mission statement ideas for the garden, to be brought up at the meeting hosted by Green Umbrella, Monday the 18th at 9pm, Lerner Ramp Lounge West (2nd floor):
Aim to grow food to sell, either at CoreFoods or the Greenmarket
Should be open to all students
Gardening demonstrations/workshops
Set an example of urban gardening
Set an example of environmental/economic sustainability
Integrate into student orientation programs
Act as a bridge between the campus and other agricultural opportunities throughout the city and beyond (i.e. connect students to farm work opportunities)
Integrate with surrounding communities, such as elementary students and senior citizens
2. Purchasing/Awareness
We have arranged to meet with Joe Heavey, the director of Columbia Dining Services to broadly discuss CUFSP’s future work with Dining services and to address a few specific issues:
· Recent Health Report (see
Spec article)
· Limited availability of fresh fruit
· Seasonality (regardless of whether the food is yet local or not)
· Labeling
· Work with Metro-Sysco food purveyor
· Dining statistics such as budget, number of meals eaten, distance food travels to reach Columbia dining halls
-Everyone is going to research examples of local foods purchasing and awareness efforts at other universities, preferably in the northeast or equally cold regions
-We decided to kick off awareness activities with a simple newsletter to be distributed at dining locations. The “February” newsletter will include information on what food is currently in season and where students can find it, perhaps even with a recipe included.
Lastly, Andrew found these very cool links regarding rooftop gardens. Perhaps we can arrange to visit the school in the first link:
http://www.greenroofs.com/projects/pview.php?id=67 http://www.hydrotechusa.com
