The University of Dayton’s Hanley Sustainability Institute launched a community-supported agriculture program for students this summer.
Over the four-week program, the institute provided students with 238 pounds of produce, grown and processed at the campus garden at Old River Park.
Community supported agriculture (CSA) programs offer a regular supply of fresh and locally grown produce.
"The original 20 students who participated in the CSA were students who frequent the food pantry over the summer," said Laura Carper, assistant director of well-being at the Brook Center. "A CSA is awesome, but food is such a great source for creating community as well."
They received CSA bags with five to seven produce items a week, including cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and more.
Anne Majka, a student leader with UD's Hanley Sustainability Institute, said she worked with other students at the institute to collect, bag and distribute the produce bags.
"And then Laura would send emails each week saying, 'What's in the bags? How do you keep produce fresh?' She would give a fun recipe for the students to try, then they would pick that up in the next day or two of it being bagged. And we would do that each week and it went really well," she saidl
Produce would rotate based on what is in season and readily available to harvest.
"Early in the season, we like to grow fast crop like radishes and we have cucumbers and we have beans and we have snap peas. And then as well we plant some tomato plants and peppers," said Patrick LaPerle, the Urban Agriculture and Compost Manager. "My goal is to basically have always something growing and also also having something ready to harvest of all the time."
Majka said it is important to provide programs like this for students who might not have access to healthy foods.
“It's not just an environmental perspective, but also that social perspective," she said. "And so students having greater access to healthy and fresh produce not only helps them in the present moment, but it builds habits in the future of them consistently consuming fresh and healthy, sustainably sourced produce.”
Students completed a survey after the four week program which showed positive feedback.
Carper said one student even used her CSA produce to cook a meal for University of Dayton President Eric Spina.
“So the student was like, ‘I'm going to use my CSA to make like a vegetable pasta using the fresh basil, the tomatoes, the peppers.’ And she's like, ‘I'm going to make sure that I that I tell President Spina that all of this awesome food, those vegetables, were from the CSA,'” Carper said.
Participants also expressed gratitude that the program introduced them to new produce like squash and beans that are not from a can.
"They said that they were using it in their dishes, trying new recipes that Laura was sending in the weekly emails, that they had never heard of a CSA program before and hadn't participated in one before. None of the 20 students had. So that was definitely a great educational opportunity as well," Majka said.
UD’s CSA program will expand to allow 40 students to participate next year.
LaPerle said this program would not have been possible without Steve Kendig, the executive director of Energy and Environmental Sustainability.
"Several years ago he approached me and said, 'Patrick, we we have to make those tennis court more productive than like having them empty.' And then I said, 'Yes, let's transform that into a comprehensive garden.'" he said. "Since we recuperate all of the food waste on campus, we actually fabricate our own compost. We are actually recognized as an Ohio EPA level two facility."
For more information about the program, visit the Hanley Sustainability Institute blog at udayton.edu.
