Food Day 2011

On October 24th, 2011 a line of over 200 people extended from inside the University YMCA all the way to the sidewalks outside. It could have been because they all wanted to learn more about sustainable methods of food production, or because they wanted to hear the guest speakers: Wes King from the Illinois Stewardship Alliance and U of I Professor Wes Jarrell. Or, it could have been because they heard about the free sustainable food. Either way, the Food Day celebration of 2011 was a huge success.

Food Day was the first of many YMCA student program collaborations, led by Students for Environmental Concerns, the Campus Vegetarian Society and the Green Observer Magazine. Food Day is a movement spearheaded by the Center for Science in the Public Interest that aims to promote “healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way”. Major goals include promoting safe and healthy foods, supporting sustainable farming, reforming farm subsidies, reducing the environmental impact of agriculture and addressing equity issues in our food system.

Ingredients for Food Day were sourced from the Urbana Farmer’s Market and the campus Sustainable Student Farm. Food preparation was handled by volunteers from the participating groups as well as members of other YMCA groups. The menu included fruit and vegetable appetizers, shish kabobs, butternut squash and sweet potato pie, all prepared by students.

The variety of delicious food, all created by locally grown produce, and the face-in-a-hole photo petitioning event all served as great accompaniments to the points made by the guest speakers. The discussion revolved around the importance of supporting local agriculture, by being a conscious consumer and asking legislators to vote for a sustainable farm bill.

The huge success of this event was the perfect example of the power of collaboration and showed how hundreds of students truly care about sustainable food.

Julie Fry, Senior in the College of Engineering, was also very happy with the turnout. “We had college kids lined up and down the block to eat vegetables,” she noted.

“I think we did something right.”

Additional information about the Food Day movement can be found at foodday.org. The event hosts plan to organize a second campus Food Day event in 2012.

Michael Chen