Students take Real Food Challenge training

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. — Last weekend, three UMaine students travelled to Bard College in New York for a “Real Food Challenge” (RFC) retreat, where they received training to spread “Real Food”— food that is sustainable, fair-traded and/or local — to UMaine.

The students, Ashley Thibeault, Audrey Cross and Dmitri Onishchuk, are part of a campus branch of RFC called “Real Food Challenge UMaine”.

The three students carpooled to Bard with RFC members from University of Maine Farmington. At the retreat, the students received training and shared ideas with other schools from the Northeast to bring the RFC campaign to their own schools. The retreat lasted the weekend, and was attended by about 50 students from 15 colleges in the northeast.

“I learned a lot and I’m excited to learn more, and apply my knowledge to making real change,” Onishchuk, a sophomore in Engineering who has become involved in the group this semester, said.

The organization Real Food Challenge (RFC) represents a national campaign to push colleges to purchase more fairly-traded, humanely raised, ecologically sound, and/or community-based sources, which they call “real food”. The goal is to have as many colleges as possible sign a document saying they will commit to the goal of investing 20 percent of their dining funds toward food that meets that criteria.

After attending the retreat, the UMaine group is eager to continue to work towards implementing more “real food” at UMaine. Currently, they are working on organizing, speaking with students and administrators, and increasing student awareness and involvement. The group’s biggest goal is to convince President Susan Hunter to sign the commitment this year, which would coincide with the University’s 150th anniversary as a Land Grant institution.

“It would make the University look great if on the 100th anniversary of the land grant, we signed this commitment embracing our roots and also looking forward to our future,” Cross said.

The group has spoken to many faculty and administrators about their cause, allegedly receiving support from people in UMaine dining services, the Climate Change Institute, auxiliary services, and the UMaine cooperative extension.