The aromas of roasted turkey, green bean casserole and pumpkin spice cookies filled the air in Benson University Center the week of November 13, as Wake Forest volunteers cooked traditional Thanksgiving Day meals and delivered them to members of the local community.
More than 200 dinners were delivered to The Children’s Home, Azalea Terrace Senior Apartments, Prodigals Community, AIDS Care Service, and The Potter’s House. When they deliver the food, volunteers also take time to share the holiday spirit.
The Turkeypalooza event, sponsored by Wake Forest Campus Kitchen, coincided with Hunger and Homelessness Week. North Carolina has one of the highest rates of food hardship in the country, with Winston-Salem being the third most food insecure city in the state.
Campus Kitchen grew out of a Wake Forest project called Homerun, started in 1999 by then-juniors Karen Stephan Borchert and Jessica Jackson Shortall. The students used donated food to cook meals for the elderly, infirm and other area residents in need.
Borchert and Shortall joined forces with the D.C. Central Kitchen to launch the Campus Kitchen Project in 2001. Campus Kitchen is a food recycling program that uses cooked but never-served food from the campus dining halls to make healthy and nutritious meals for those in need.
Wake Forest’s Campus Kitchen is one of the University’s premier sustainability initiatives; rescuing food that would otherwise be wasted and using it to fight hunger and poverty in the greater Winston-Salem area.
Currently there are more than 30 Campus Kitchens in operation across the country.
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