letter to admin - need extra sets of eyes

Dr. Burley told me to post the letter to the admin so far to show to class. I only got to change a few things.. changed the survey/petition facts to bullet points and changed "I" in the beginning to "we." I made the margins smaller too but it's still a little over a page. Any suggestions for things to take out/edit?

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Dear President John Crain,

            My name is Bonnie May, and I’m writing to you on behalf of Reconnect, our environmental and sustainability student group on campus. 

We are writing to you to propose an exciting change for our school that will improve the image and community of the university as a whole, as well as fulfill our bold mission statement: “… to lead the educational, economic, and cultural development of southeast Louisiana.”  This change combines all three of these elements, as well as others, and it is one simple change: Food.

The Real Food Challenge (realfoodchallenge.org) is a national campaign where students work together with their campus dining representatives, faculty, and small farmers to increase access to local, sustainable, and “real” food at their universities.  This task has numerous economic, educational, social, health, and environmental benefits. Supporting small local farmers puts more money into the local economy than purchasing from industrial farmers from far away would, which would allow our university to support the local community it belongs to.  Food that is driven shorter distances also maintains more of its nutrients, is fresher and tastier, and consumes fewer fossil fuels.  Furthermore, allowing students to get to know where their food comes from and the farmers that grow the food allows students to gain a stronger sense of community and pride for their school.  Creating this simple change would provide an applied, hands-on learning experience for students where they discover how food is connecting to all of these issues.

The Real Food Challenge’s overall goal is to shift one billion dollars of university food budget money to community-based, sustainable, fair, and humane food by the year 2020.  As of now, over 300 colleges already have their own farms and other farm-to-cafeteria initiatives, and about $35 million dollars of annual university food budgets have already been shifted towards obtaining more local, sustainable, and fair food.  Here are some examples of schools who are achieving “Real Food” successes:

·               Pacific University in Oregon purchases local cage-free eggs, local grass-fed beef, fair trade products, and produce from local, sustainable farms.  

·               At Arizona State University, 35% of their food purchases are local. They also receive much of their food directly from farmers through monthly farmers markets and CSA’s (Community-Supported Agriculture).  

·               The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sources approximately 25% of its food from local farms.  They have won numerous awards for sustainability, earning an “A“in Food and Recycling on the College Sustainability Report Card.  

There are many other examples of schools that have successfully shifted toward acquiring more real food and honor small farmers proudly.  We would like Southeastern Louisiana University to be one of them.  So far, there haven’t been any universities in Louisiana have succeeded in the Real Food Challenge. Southeastern Louisiana University would be the first in the state, and a leader in the region.  With Louisiana’s rich agricultural history and long growing seasons, it would only be logical for our school to reap the benefits of having fresher, healthier, and more sustainable local food that puts money back into our local economy.

On October 24^th, Reconnect and Dr. Burley’s applied Environmental Sociology graduate class hosted a farmers market for National Food Day. Students were able to purchase fresh vegetables picked that very morning, less than 150 miles away from southern Louisiana and southern Mississippi. The farmers that participated in Food Day were the Pointe Coupee Farmers Cooperative and the India Springs Farmers Cooperative. Students were very enthusiastic about this event, and many expressed interest in having more farmers markets on campus or having more local food in the Caymen cafeteria.

·      Of the 274 students surveyed, 230 of them said they would be willing to pay slightly more for more local produce in the cafeteria.

·      226 said they would attend a regular farmers market hosted at Southeastern. 

·      We have also collected 1079 signatures from students who are interested in Southeastern Louisiana University getting more real food on campus.

We have many students on campus who think this is a great idea for Southeastern, and we hope that you do too and support it.  Something as simple as changing food can have a big positive impact on our school and on our university as a whole.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and hopefully your support.

Sincerely,

Bonnie May, president of Reconnect

Bloggariffic

I got the sheets from Bonnie and tried to contact Jamie Womack who has additional sheets from sigma sigma sigma. I am still enjoying my sweet potatoes and honey which I purchased at our farmers market Watched the webinar and it was a first. I was excited when my question was read and got to see results immediately from this process.

Week of November 9th through 15th

Hello all!

I picked up the sign up sheets from the lab where Bonnie left them, however, Danity did not go to class on Thursday night. So, I gave the sheets to Benny on Thursday. That is all I have to report.

erica

This week

Sent the letter to Bonnie for her to send out once all the emails are in.

Some people have gotten back about the Turtle Cove thing. Seems most are flexible. I would personally prefer the weekdays after finals.

Hi Guys

I know I have been out of sorts for the past week, please forgive me. Big truck insurance companies and honesty really don't mix. :)
With that being said, I will return the e-mailing lists that are still in my possession to Bonnie since the signatures are all counted. Other than that, I don't have much to report.

Farmers meeting soon!

Sorry for the late blog. Yesterday was mah BIRFDAY!

So, good news! We have a date for the meeting with the farmers. Not all of them will be available, but a good amount of them will be: this tuesday, Nov. 22nd at 11am. If need be, the time can be adjusted, but Dr. Burley said that would be a good time for him. I invited the Reconnect members too. I hope some of you all will be able to attend as well.

Sooo, I guess I should email Joseph and Brittany from Campus dining? I'll do that today!

The webinar was a little late, but it was very informative. I took notes. The first speaker had some great marketing ideas for farmers markets and some good things to consider if/as our farmers market gets bigger.. or it may not, and just stay small. The second speaker was my favorite, though, because he talked about the social and cultural aspects of farmers markets and how their farmers markets (Fondy Foods) served as a healing experience for their farmers. I think the social/cultural aspects (especially having minority farmers) are very important to consider, and I look forward to watching/observing and talking to people in the next farmers markets! But in addition to that, our farmers market will serve as a really important source for local, healthy food.. this will be the only farmers market in Hammond, right at  SELU!

I got the thank you letter for the RFC signature email list from Sole, thank you Sole! I've sent it out. I combined all of the contact groups into one contact group.

Now I just need to tweak that letter to the president!

I also talked to the Reconnecters about the Turtle Cove outing (they got Sole's email too) and they're super, super excited. I can't wait!

-- Bonnie

Week of November 9 - 15

Hey guys,

This week has been kinda slow, and I've been preparing for my papers and finals. With that being said we did have a webinar to attend, and I will speak on that for a moment. It started a little late, but it was full of valuable information. One thing that I really enjoyed was the idea that attracting vendors and retaining vendors should look at more than just economics; it should look at social, human, and natural sources. Asking vendors about their experiences by using a survey is the same concept that we did at the farmers market. I don't believe our farmers market is at a stage where it could support more than one vendor (if we would even want to), but I do believe it is always a good idea to gauge the farmers about their experiences both economic and social.
One of the major things that the first speaker spoke about that I liked was the idea of specializing your product line: Become a new, creative type of market (new kinds of market that work from your own community or locality with specialty items that work with your culture; ex. seafood or health items). I believe this is a goal we need to strive for. Personally, I think we kinda met this goal already by having local-area farmers sell local produce at our farmers market, but this is always something we can push for even more.
The second speaker spoke a lot about the cultural and social aspects of farmers markets and the farmers in general, and one key point that I took from his presentation was that with the evaluation of farmers, don’t look at economic “American” viewpoint, but look at the farmers culturally and see if they can reconnect to their own culturally traditions; need to look at social aspects of farmers. I think this is one thing we need to do every time we put on a farmers market is to evaluate the farmers and how they felt the event went beyond financially. I would love to have their input in evaluating our project, and how they felt their social needs were met by this project or what was lacking.
Overall, I had to leave the webinar once the questions started because I had to go do my field experience for my education classes, but it was a pretty cool experience! I've had a great time in this class with all of you, and I just want to thank everyone for helping me out during my first semester in grad school, and what has been the toughest semester in my personal life. Thank you guys so much, and it has been an honor to work with all of you!

Meet The Stranger

Hello Everybody, I'm a stranger here, but maybe not for long. As my study revealed, all you are doing to implement a regular farmers market and any other changes should continue.
Get the student body behind you, and ultimately the admin.will have to follow, and aramark likewise.
Got to go, the local poltergeist is hasseling me. (I'm serious, the thing must have followed from the other house) rick

Hi Everyone,

I gave the total numbers of the petitions that were in my possession to Bonnie yesterday. I must say that I was very impressed, and also I have drawn up the design of the tables from the farmer's market. I delivered a thank you note to Winn Dixie in Bogalusa. They were very thankful. Other than that, I have nothing else to report.

See you all tonight!!!
Danaty

Old RFC Petitions

Here are the totals for the old RFC Petitions...

Total Number of Signatures: 293
Total Number of Email Addresses: 90
Total Number of Volunteers: 10

Real Foodosphere

Even as this project winds down I continually find that I am learning more, be it from increased awareness or that Dr. Burley is producing a super class of social scientists. Even noticing on sitcoms in grocery store scenes the signage in the market reading locally grown tomatoes. Not much else to report other than the counting of the beans. Tim and I came up with some different numbers we need to work that out. I also distributed two thank you notes one to the Slidell Winn Dixie and the other to Aramark's Manager.

Week of Novermber 2nd to the 9th!

Hello All,

I just wanted to let everyone know that all thank you cards have been sent out as of last Thursday! I want to thank all of you that gave me information for the cards. It really helped make the process work with ease. That is all I have to report! See you all tonight in class.

WHEEEEE!

The farmers have been super busy with the fall harvest, and some of them were in Oakland, California too (whoo!) but I got in contact with Ben and Darnella and they got my messages about having a meeting soon. Darnella has been asking all the other farmers to find a good date, and she says she'll have a final answer pretty soon. It will definitely be before the 22nd. I think she said potentially the 17th, but she's still asking.

I also finally sent out a letter to all the presidents of student organizations. I got one response so far! I wrote her up a letter to sign.

Tim counted a bunch of the signatures (below).. in addition to those, Danaty emailed me with the ones she counted.. almost 200! Also, we found another pile of signatures that Tim didn't see in the office, so we'll have more than that!
Did anyone else besides me, Danaty, and Tim have signatures? Let me know! I think we'll be close to a thousand.. and so many people who considered volunteering!

Tim also posted the survey results, and Benny double-checked them! Only a difference of about 1, so not a big deal. Tomorrow I'll be working on editing my letter to the president to work in all of these wonderful findings!

Monica, Cecelia, and I also submitted an application for the Real Food Challenge grassroots leadership program.. fingers crossed!

I also got a call from my friend Matt yesterday, who is also Real Food Challenge's Southeast coordinator. He checked up on what we were doing, and asked if we needed him to come down and help with anything. I told him it might be good for him to come by sometime within the next two weeks, either to attend our meeting with the farmers, or to help me work on the letter to send to the president along with the Campus Commitment
He also said that the next national RFC training is going to be in California.. sometime in February, I forgot the exact date. He's going to nominate our school (aww!) to get funding for about 2-5 of us to go. I said we could definitely have that many Reconnect members go, if they're available. But if any of ya'll in the class are interested too, please let me know.

Dude!  We have a sustainability manager now! Russell Evans, at the Physical Plant. He wants to meet with Reconnect sometime to talk about what we're doing. This is so exciting! I didn't think SELU would ever get a sustainability manager/director.

All of this is really, really exciting. You all have done a lot of great work for Reconnect and the Real Food Challenge. Because of all the education, and because of Food Day being such a success for students AND Aramark AND the farmers, I think things are going to run a lot more smoothly now.. we'll see soon!

-- Bonnie

Week of November 2nd - November 8th

Hey guys! I totaled all of the signatures of RFC petitions that I had in my office, and the totals are amazing!!! I am still missing some, so if anyone has any just add the them on to this running total. I am going to email Adam to make sure he doesn't still have some petitions. Here are the totals...

Total Number of Signatures: 605
Total Number of Email Addresses: 433
Total Number of Volunteers: 92

I also totaled all of the Food Day/Farmers Market petitions and here is that data (it is already added to the above totals)...

Total Number of Signatures: 90
Total Number of Email Addresses: 86
Total Number of Volunteers: 24

Lastly, I looked my personal classroom presentations and calculated the number of classes, groups, and the academic breakdown that I visited. Here are those results...

Total Number of Classes: 24
Total Number of Student Groups: 1 (BSU)
Different Disciplines Visited: Sociology, FCS, Biology, Theatre, History

If I am missing anything, please add on to this list. We did a great job, and I am so proud to be a part of this project!!!

Hi All

Im sorry I have been out of contact. I was in an accident with an 18 wheeler and have been dazed and confused since then. I really dont have anything to update, but I did give Erica the names of the donaters of the bags. So hopefully, I will be back on track soon.

Thanks and the Week Summed Up

Hello everyone!


I didn't post anything new because I posted last week and didn't really have anything else to say. Although, I have written all the thank you notes. I emailed Ms. Brenda in the Soc/CJ office about actually getting the cards from her and she hasn't responded so I'll go by later and talk to her about getting them. Also, went to a farmers market followup chat with Dr. Burley, Dr. Gilbert, Bonnie, and Tim. It went well I believe. Thanks everyone for getting their addresses and donations to me for the cards. If there is anything else let me know asap.

erica

reflection of food day

I would like to say that this is the first time in my academic career that I have done something that was a first. Something that I can look back on and say that my class had something to do with originating an action. I would like to thank Dr's Burley and Bolton for having the foresight that allowed us as a group to prosper and for providing us with your expert guidance.
The experience that we gained is invaluable. The exposure to the essential elements of environmental sustainability will stay with us for a lifetime and allow us to spread the green word. Again please allow me to say thanks to everyone involved both directly and indirectly and I hope everyone was as impacted by this event as I was.

Food Day, the aftermath

I sent an email out to all of you to start collecting data for the business students. Dr. Burley said I should copy it here in the blog too. Thank you Tim and Sole for getting stuff to me!

"Hey all! I talked to Atsuko, one of the Environmental management students in the class helping us, and asked her what all we needed to give them to help them develop a business plan for future farmers market. I suggested a few things and she added a few things. What do you all think?

List of things needed for Business plan:

-       How we advertised
-       Table Layout
-       Materials used
-       How we found/recruited the farmers
-       Any documents we have regarding the initial organization of the market (?)


Not sure what we would need for the last one... for how we recruited the farmers, that was through Dr. Burley, so that should be easy to answer. Does anyone else have any other ideas of what we should need? I know Sole said she can make a list of how we advertised, since she handled a lot of that.

I know there were various materials we used as well... tape, poster boards, dry erase board and camera, utensils, plates, advertisement materials, plastic bags and tote bags, extension cords, tables, chairs, etc. Anything else?

Table layout, we can probably draw out or write out, and put before and after for when the survey was moved. Maybe Tim and anyone else dealing with the survey could mention to them which arrangement for the survey seemed to have better results.

Alright, have a great week!"


I sent the survey data Tim posted as well as the suggestions from the health class. I also forwarded the business students the webinar because it would probably be helpful to their project. I'll send them what Sole posted too. A lot of the things they want we don't have written documents for, so I told them I'll write or verbally tell them how we organized farmers, etc.

Can anyone double-check Tim's count for the survey.. and can someone volunteer to draw or write out the table layout of Food Day (before and after table changes)?

Got the addresses/building and room numbers for Jim McHodgkins and Jonathan Ambrose for Erica. I emailed Darnella for farmer addresses and she supplied some of them, which I sent to Erica, and she said she'll get back to me with the last two.

I also sent an email thanking Brittany and Joseph for helping/stopping by. Joseph replied back and said he enjoyed Food Day and thought it was very successful, and that he looks forward to it again. I will email him back soon to let him know that when/if we plan another meeting with the farmers, we'll invite him. I wanted to ask Reconnect members if they agreed with this, but only Monica showed up to the meeting. ): She thought it was a good idea. It would give Joseph a chance to talk to the farmers face to face again, and Brittany is a student who is supportive for the RFC but also works on campus dining too. Monica thinks we should definitely try to schedule a meeting before Thanksgiving if possible.

One thing I keep forgetting is to write up the letter for the organizations. I'm sorry! I'll try to have this by tomorrow, and send to Dr. Burley first for him to proof-read before sending.

As for photos, I have some favorites.. should we email them?

I keep looking at the school paper and such to look for signs of people talking about Food Day or mentioning food...  I want mooooar! Looking at all the photo petitions makes me smile too. I hope we can do that again.

Thank you all again sooo much for making this so successful! Monica commented that we were all so organized that she didn't feel like there was anything left to do to help.. oops! Spring semester will be a lot more hectic without you all helping, but hopefully we can get some kind of student internship going.

-- Bonnie

Post Farmers Market

The farmers market was a blast. I was so happy to see how excited a lot of the students were about the idea of fresh produce on campus. Many bought something to snack on if they lived on campus or bought more if they lived off campus. My mother even came for some sweet potatoes and other things.

With all that Jay and I bought I made an amazing gumbo. I had extra that I brought to work and my coworker ate a couple servings.

I am sending Bonnie the info she needs to forward to the business students now. Basically:
Methods used for marketing:

1. talking to classes (27)
   
2. radio
   
3. signs
4. flyers
5. word of mouth
6. newspaper

Methods not used this time:

1. lawn signs
2. t-shirts
3. local tv

One thing that did not go as planned were the chefs. John Wong took produce from the campus dining services across the way to cook initially. Then there would be a line for him to cook stuff between classes. I think in the future Reconnect needs to supply the chefs with a certain amount of produce to cook and then give out as samples. We should also probably let them bring some stuff to sell possibly? Organic Inspirations needs not come back. If that lady had called me like she did Erica I would have flipped. Just being honest. They did not follow any instructions they were given and then were a pain to deal with once they got there. The bison burger was good, but not good enough to deal with them again.

Health Students Suggestions for future markets

Hi all,
I asked Dr. Naquin if her and her students had any suggestions on how we can improve the farmers market next time. Here is exactly what she wrote:

Hi. Thank you for including HS 462. It was such a great start. My students, colleagues and I really enjoyed the event!

Here are a few suggestions:

- place educational tables at the start (these were in the back)

- put posters up in all building on campus (our building had none)

- advertise on mass email at SLU (technology@selu.edu)

- have the event at least twice a semester

- have it on a Tuesday or Thursday (it seems like more classes are offered then)

Again, these are just suggestions. I thought it was wonderful! Thanks again. Millie

Farmers Market Week and Beyond!

The farmers market went absolultely great! We had a lot of people (students, faculty, and community) participate and help support these local farmers! I was very suprised to have as many participants in the survery as we did, and a few students even recognized me from speaking to their classes. I would like to thank everyone else in class for doing a tremendous job on this project, and Reconnect for hosting it. I gave 4 presentations the week before the farmers market (2 to Mr. Chauvin's history classes and 2 to Dr. Kleiner's sociology classes). All four went very well, and I am excited to get to see the total number of signatures we recieved.

I have counted the survey, and here are the results (they are going to be very suprising!)...

Question 1: Would you attend a regular farmers market held on campus?
Yes: Students (229); Faculty/Staff (33); Farmers (3); Community (7)
No: Students (11); Faculty/Staff (1); Farmers (0); Community (0)
Not Sure: Students (37); Faculty/Staff (0); Farmers (0); Community (1)
Total Number of Participants: Students (277); Faculty/Staff (34); Farmers (3); Community (8)
Grand Total of Participants: 322

Question 2: Are you in favor of adding more local produce to the university menus, even if it means a slightly higher cost?
Yes: Students (230); Faculty/Staff (32); Farmers (3); Community (6)
No: Students (11); Faculty/Staff (0); Farmers (0); Community (0)
Not Sure: Students (33); Faculty/Staff (2); Farmers (0); Community (2)
Total Number of Participants: Students (274); Faculty/Staff (34); Farmers (3); Community (8)
Grand Total of Participants: 319

Question 3: Do you shop at other area farmers markets?
Yes: Students (145); Faculty/Staff (28); Farmers (3); Community (7)
No: Students (118); Faculty/Staff (4); Farmers (0); Community (1)
Not Sure: Students (14); Faculty/Staff (2); Farmers (0); Community (0)
Total Number of Participants: Students (277); Faculty/Staff (34); Farmers (3); Community (8)
Grand Total of Participants: 322

There seems to be missing data for the second question (3 student responses).