2011 in Review

Another calendar year has rolled around and a new semester is upon us!

The spring promises to be full of more fun and educational programs, but 2011 deserves a round of applause before we completely bid it farewell.

2011 Sustainable Dining highlights:
-Presented (for the 2nd year in a row) at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education's annual conference; this year's presentation, in Pittsburgh, was on Dining's relationship with the Local Food Hub (October)
-Hosted a Local Food Hub farm stand on Grounds (September)
-Took a full van of students out to tour the beautiful Morven Kitchen Garden (September)
-Participated in Virginia Farm to School week, with local ingredients highlighted in residential dining's dishes (November)
-Worked with four Global Sustainability student groups to organize food waste audits around Grounds (October)
-Hosted a Meat Free Monday kick-off with a variety of student and community groups represented (August)
-Helped another Global Sustainability student group host a Local Foods Fair at the Fine Arts Cafe, featuring Twin Oaks, Farm at Red Hill, and the Local Food Hub (November)
-Installed a second hydration station on Grounds (June)
-Sponsored the 2nd Virginia Food Security Summit, that drew over 300 attendees and launched the preliminary Virginia Farm to Table Plan (December)
-Took a tour of the Local Food Hub Educational Farm (April)
-Hosted a "Logistics of Local" panel to explore how Dining is expanding its local food procurement efforts (March)
-Entered O'Hill in the EPA Green Building Challenge and competed throughout the summer (June)
-Celebrated Campus Sustainability Day by highlighting the dining hall's "Green Menu Items", and by participation in a sustainability dialogue representing education, energy, planning and transportation, and dining facets of on-Grounds conservation (October)
-Gave tours of O'Hill and its green features, especially the pulper and general composting operation, to student groups (June, November)
-Incorporated local ingredients into a series of "Healthy Bites Bars" to showcase the dining halls' healthy options (October, November)
-Celebrated Fair Trade Month with a fair trade products sampling event (October)
-Took some of our chefs out to the Local Food Hub warehouse for a tour of the facility (September)
-Participated in UVa Earth Week, including hosting a second annual Farm to Fork meal that featured local ingredients and the local producers who grow them (April)
-Celebrated National Nutrition Month and incorporated some local food into the dishes where possible, including in new recipes developed by two Green Dining students for a class project (March)
-Launched Share Your Bowl, a philanthropic partnership with Kellogg that resulted in the equivalent of nearly 11,000 servings of cereal being donated to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank to support their after school programs (March)

Keep on visiting this blog to find out what's to come in 2012!