AASHE Campus Sustainability Hub

Food insecurity is defined as the state of being without reliable access to sufficient affordable and nutritious food. Food insecurity in the San Francisco Bay Area (and our state, country and world) is not evenly distributed. Many of our food insecure populations are communities of color, making this an environmental justice and equity issue. Recent internal data suggests that there is a significant Saint Mary’s student population that identify as food insecure. To meet the growing needs of Saint Mary’s students who are interested in working in the field of sustainability, raise awareness about food security as well as provide resources to food insecure populations at Saint Mary’s and beyond, Saint Mary's recently launched its inaugural “food justice” student internship with the goal of expanding this single internship to a multi-year fellowships program as well as offer additional programming around issues of food insecurity.

This program is managed in collaboration with Saint Mary’s Office of Sustainability, our on campus Community Engagement office "CILSA," and external food justice community partners as well as partnerships with our food service provider, Good Eating Co. The overarching goal of the food justice internships is to support a food system that is more equitable and healthy.

In the summer of 2022, Saint Mary’s changed its food service contract to the Good Eating Co., which focused heavily on sustainable food systems and procurement. The year before, students and staff at Saint Mary’s conducted a food insecurity survey which underscored the growing need to address access to healthy, affordable food on and off campus. The food insecurity data combined with the new food contract, and accompanied with Saint Mary’s Lassallian and Catholic values of social justice and care for our common home, provided the catalyst for Saint Mary’s food justice fellows program. While Saint Mary’s has a strong social justice foundation, the college was excited about the opportunity to leverage the food justice student fellowship program, which would build upon the rich tradition of sustainability rooted in social justice to offer more professional development opportunities focused on justice, more workshops and events to increase awareness about the complex issues around the environment, food and equity, as well as increase access to healthy, affordable food to food insecure populations.

The overarching goal of the food justice fellowships is to support a food system that is more equitable and healthy. Specific outcomes include: (1) Providing 960 hours of paid professional development experience for four students in interested in sustainability and food justice (4 food justice fellowships for 8 hours per week in both fall and spring semesters). (2) The opportunity to gain 240 hours of on-the-job experience in a student’s field of interest has the potential to open doors to new career pathways for many students who might not have otherwise had such an opportunity. More specifically, the fellows will have the opportunity develop new skillsets, take on leadership roles, improve communication skills, expand their professional network and gain experience in their field. The fellows receive training, one-on-one weekly support for planning, goal setting, and time management as well as bi-weekly team meeting check-ins. (3) Engage over 200 volunteers in over 1,000 hours of service opportunities related to sustainability, food justice and environmental conservation. Part of the responsibilities of the food justice fellows is to develop and offer ways for their classmates as well as staff, faculty and community members to volunteer in the campus garden or with off-campus food justice partners. Our current volunteer offerings in this realm are limited. (4) Host workshops and events and reach over 200 people in an effort to increase awareness around food insecurity and influence public policy. Food justice fellows will utilize the proposed educational programming budget to develop and host at least 10 workshops, speakers and events to increase awareness about the complex environmental, food and equity issues. (5) The increased production and distribution of local, healthy fresh produce will enhance access opportunities for food insecure populations.

The project was implemented in close collaboration with a variety of on and off campus partners. These included partnerships with off-campus food justice organizations, including Alameda Point Collaborative’s Farm2Market program; our campus food vendor, The Good Eating Co.; Saint Mary’s Community Engagement office “CILSA”; the Provost’s Office; the Vice President of Student Life; and our Corporate and Foundational Relations office within Advancement to help seek external funding.

We are employing a multi-year “phased” rollout of this program, which will take two years from planning to full implementation. The first year we trialed a single food justice internship program in partnership with our Community Engagement office to assess needs and capacity, as well as put together the funding needing to grow and enhance the Food Justice fellows program.

The two biggest programmatic costs for this program include funding for student internships/fellowships as well as educational programming. Fellowship costs include an hourly rate for both fall and spring semesters. Additional programmatic funds would provide resources for food justice student interns to host events, speakers and workshops for the community. These funds would help purchase workshop materials, promotional and educational materials, speaker honorariums, and event costs.

We were able to creatively bundle funds from external grants, food service budgets and allocations from our Community Engagement office “CILSA”, Academic Affairs and Student Life.

This is a relatively new program, thus the predicted outcomes are listed above, in the “Goals” section.

Collaborative, mutually beneficial partnerships are critical to the success of this program. Saint Mary’s has a rich history of off-campus community partnerships, including a few that focus on food justice. Additionally, this program would not have been possible without funding from a variety of sources, see above.

• Ann Drevno - Sustainability Director | Saint Mary's College of California