The wonderful students behind the blog:

Alisha Buttar
Major: Food, Nutrition and Health

I am looking forward to contributing with my team at the Riley Park Community Garden by collectively applying our knowledge of land, food and community. I am grateful for this opportunity to work with my peers and our community leaders to strengthen my relationship with the community and am excited to see how the produce library will unfold.

Melissa Le
Major: Food Science

This year, I plan to become more involved and comfortable with uncertainty. I hope this project gives me a broader perspective on education and community based learning.

 

 

Ginia Chang
Major: Applied Animal Biology

 

As an APBI major, I am interested in the welfare of animals, especially those in the food system. I used to go to Hillcrest frequently, but I’ve never been to Riley Park, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more about the community and the garden there. I find it fascinating that food can bring all sorts of people together and create diverse communities. Although I don’t have a nutritional background, I hope I am able to contribute on the creative side of things. As for LFS 350, I hope to use it as a learning experience as to how the outside world works.

Matt Kohan
Major: Nutritional Sciences

Over the years, I have developed a deep love of food, as it is a unique intersection of so many issues: it is important purely as a biological necessity, but the choices we make about our food can positively and negatively affect both our health and enjoyment to great degrees. Through LFS, I have also seen how our choices affect not only ourselves but our communities and the environment as well.  My hope is to work in a capacity that allows me to assist people in making decisions about food, so that they can meet their personal needs (whether they are related to health or income), be environmentally conscious, and still enjoy what they eat.

LFS is an exciting opportunity, as it will give me experience engaging with a wide variety people about food, be they organizerswho want to develop a plan to help their community, volunteers who want to assist in executing that plan, or the people of the community themselves.

In addition, working on a project that is not clearly prescribed will be an important exercise in tackling the unknown, and I am thrilled to do so in a context that I am so enthusiastic about.

 

 

 

Dorothy Tam
Major: Food, Nutrition and Health

As an FNH student, besides being passionate about food and nutrition, I also have a huge interest in music, especially playing the violin and singing. With the nutritional knowledge that I have learned in school for the past two years and the volunteering experience as a music therapist assistant, I hope I am able to reach out to different types of people and provide therapeutic help to them in the future.

Through LFS 350, I wish I gain more understanding about how do people from different backgrounds benefit from a community organization, as well as learning more about the small-scale food system in the neighborhood of the Riley Park Community garden. Also, I believe this group project will significantly improve my organization and management skills due to huge amount of planning and scheduling required.

Nan Jiang
Major: Nutritional Science

I am very interested in food and nutrition. When I am cooking on my own, I try to create my own healthy recipes by considering nutritional aspects of food. After learning more deeply into the food system, I wondered how I could apply my food literacy knowledge to the community. This project really provides an amazing opportunity for me to keep a more open perspective as I head into the world beyond university.

From this project, I hope to build stronger connections with community partners and the organization to increase access of local health food for those who are vulnerable.