Today was a super productive day (I’m noticing a trend among my Wednesdays) but not in the academic sense, but the learning sense.

I helped harvest, cook, and enjoy a community meal with the Aboriginal Health program on campus. I rediscovered the wonder of the food system and just how much we as a society are detached from our food. Working together to create a delicious meal was absolutely enlightening.

I sat down in the student cafe in my main faculty building on campus and ran into some of my classmates from my degree program. We talked about dreams, passions, and ideas for what we would like to see happen on campus. And lofty wishing aside, we started to form plans to make those dreams into concrete goals.

We want to create a series of workshops for our program classmates outside of class to help each other realize our potentials, come together as each other’s greatest resources, and share our inspiring passions with the rest of the group. Having a sense of solidarity with others who are in the same graduating boat as I am made me feel like the ocean wasn’t so scary to sail off into anymore.

We want to start a UBC Community Food Initiative – one where all of the food/sustainability clubs and organizations can come together to help improve the health of students on campus and also foster a community in this city we call UBC. This, we think, can be in conjunction with the project I’m working on (Community Student Kitchen in the new SUB).

Just that hour of excited chatter taught me so much than any lecture. I know I repeated this sentiment last Wednesday but it’s so powerful that I need to repeat it again and again.

I managed to squeeze in a quick run at the Bird Coop (hooray!) before heading off to Vancouver City Hall to attend the monthly Vancouver Food Policy Council meeting. I learned about a ton of amazing things happening around the city on the topic of food (and even got in touch with working with the council members in my free time :D).

So I came back home all smiles. I had woken up feeling like today was going to be a fantastic day and oh boy was I right. And somehow, everything I experienced and learned today relates to one another. I’m really liking this idea of fostering community and public health through food and cooking (via kitchens). I think it’ll have a big role in what I choose to do (or what lands in my lap) when May graduation rolls around.

Food just has a way of bringing everything together.