It is safe to say that UMES Hotel and Restaurant management students, Ashley Minton and Laura Gorog, have no fear of commitment. They recently joined nearly 1200 carefully-selected university students from across the globe to present their “Commitments to Action” during the Clinton Global Initiative University, an annual conference aimed at empowering young people to take concrete steps toward solving world challenges, held at the George Washington University, March 30 – April 1.
During the event, Minton and Gorog, presented their commitment to expand the Campus Kitchens Project at USG and were provided with the opportunity to learn from like-minded peers, celebrity activists, and leading entrepreneurs.
Out of the Kitchen
As President and Vice President of UMES Campus Kitchens at USG, Minton and Gorog have developed a plan to include an educational component in the Campus Kitchens Project that goes beyond meal preparation to provide essential life and job skills. Since 2008, Campus Kitchens has been partnering with The Dwelling Place, a transitional home in Montgomery County for families experiencing homelessness, to provide 200 meals each month for residents. In addition to receiving meals, the families of The Dwelling Place visit USG periodically for educational activity, focusing on healthy eating and economical meal planning.
Under the enhanced plan, mothers of The Dwelling Place and other similar facilities, will visit USG for a series of two-to-four week sessions of instruction in a subject of their choice and be provided with resume writing and job interview skills. The program will also offer childcare for the families during the lessons and help with job hunting after completion.
“Our commitment is about helping these families, who are previously homeless, work towards a sustainable lifestyle,” said Ashley Minton, President, UMES Campus Kitchens at USG. “No matter what your situation is now, we all have a future – and how we can take advantage of that future is what we want to focus on.”
The students intend to draw upon USG’s unique education model to help carry out their plan – Minton and Gorog will recruit volunteers from several of USG’s 70-plus academic programs and nine universities to participate in all facets of the initiative. They will secure funding, scout volunteers, and fine-tune the blueprint for the expanded program, which they hope to launch in Fall 2013.
Room for More
At USG, Campus Kitchens is a service-learning program embedded into the curriculum of the UMES Hotel and Restaurant Management program. Students at USG plan the meals, obtain the food, run the cooking shifts and organize the drivers to deliver the meals to The Dwelling Place. In May of 2011, Campus Kitchens and The Dwelling Place celebrated the milestone of 10,000 meals prepared.
“We are proud of what we do here at Campus Kitchens now,” said Laura Gorog, Vice President, UMES Campus Kitchens at USG . “But with some additional funding and focus, we can expand this program to meet more needs of the mothers and children we help and, at the same time, build on our learning objectives as students.”
Of the 31 Campus Kitchens Projects operating in the United States, many offer components of career and job training in their programs, following in the footsteps of their parent organization, DC Central Kitchens.