My name is Sarah White, and I am currently a senior majoring in Hospitality Management with minors in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Food Systems. As part of my Food Systems minor, I am doing a for-credit internship on the Student Farm. My credit specifically is three credits, one being about five hours per week on the farm, and two credits being a business project.
The project that I am working on is called Salad Club. The idea behind this project is to help students gain access to the fresh produce that the Student Farm yields through a small CSA program. CSA stands for Campus Supported Agriculture in which people pay a fee ahead of time in order to get boxes of fresh produce directly from the farm for a set number of weeks. A traditional CSA does not work for students very well because it tends to be a lot of produce, and students may be unsure of how to prepare certain foods or incorporate them into their diet. Salad Club would cost less money than a traditional CSA and the weekly yield would be significantly less, coupled with an educational aspect. This educational aspect will include recipes, tutorials through videos and suggestions on how to prepare each item. In order to make Salad Club realistic for all students, including those in dorms, each week we will give a suggested salad and dressing recipe as we understand that cooking is not always a feasible option.
In tandem with Salad Club, I work on the Student Farm for five hours each week. This gives me the opportunity to learn more about how a farm works and how these fruits, vegetables, and flowers are produced. Most of my food experience is on the production side such as culinary arts and restaurants, so I find that being able to respect and understand where that food is coming from is very beneficial to my personal understanding of the food system.