During the past week, we had a chance to meet with our community partners! Although not everyone was able to attend due to class conflicts, four members was able to attend the meeting. We were able to meet with two Special Olympic organizers (one via conference call), the Director of the UBC SEEDS program, as well as the UBC Food Service Director. The other Special Olympic SEEDS program on Waste Disposal also joined our meeting with two of their representative.

At the meeting, we discussed potential areas of direction, building off of what has already been established. We discussed ways that may benefit most from our our interaction with they projects. They include the Totem Park cafeteria, several of the cafeteria for the Athletic Village, the Thunderbird Arena concession, the “Hungry Nomad” food truck, as well as external public vendors.

Since our initial meeting with our community partners, our team has been dissecting the menu provided for the Totem cafeteria during the games. We hope to identify any ingredient that may be substituted with either more nutritious or sustainable option. We have been searching the reasons behind sustainable food procurement, and plan to integrate this information into an educational component of our project. We hope to inform the consumers and athlete the type of food they’re eating and the necessity of sustainable food system that produced those food. This can be served as a foundation on which to construct standardized guidelines that the SEEDS program may consult for future food event management.