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After 10 days of voting during which nearly 40,000 individual votes were cast, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville was awarded a grant to bring a Campus Kitchen to campus. SIUE was among five universities to receive a $5,000 startup grant during the first ever Launch Grant Video Competition hosted by the Campus Kitchens Project. The grant, sponsored by the Sodexo Foundation, will allow SIUE students, faculty and staff to provide food to poverty stricken areas in local communities.

Seven universities qualified for the competition in which students submitted video bids for a grant to begin a Campus Kitchen. The SIUE student organization, Alliance of Students Against Poverty (ASAP), partnered with the Kimmel Student Involvement Center to produce the submission video. A public vote was held Jan. 23-29, and grants were awarded to the top five universities. Grants were also awarded to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, St. Peter’s University, Georgia Tech and University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

The startup grant makes SIUE one of only 39 universities that have been selected to host Campus Kitchens nationwide. In the video submission, ASAP Chapter President Ray Jhala explained that SIUE students are willing and eager to help. “There’s an outcry from this community that wants to provide relief to those in need, but many of those people who want to help actually lack the proper outlet to do so,” he said.

Campus Kitchens is a national community service organization that empowers students to take a stand against hunger by reducing food waste and utilizing unused food to provide meals for low-income families. Student volunteers will organize menus, prepare and transport food, and provide educational outreach services to families living in poverty.

“The SIUE community has been 100 percent committed to the Campus Kitchens’ mission,” said Sarah Laux, assistant director for civic engagement in the SIUE Kimmel Student Involvement Center. “Bringing Campus Kitchens to SIUE provides leadership and personal development opportunities to students. They will have ownership over this project and be able to see the effects of their hard work from start to finish.”

In the future, Laux hopes to establish a fund through which community members and local grocery stores can partner with the SIUE Campus Kitchen and sustain the initiative for years to come.