5 things: Scholarships attract servers to senior community’s dining program

In this edition of 5 Things, Food Management highlights five things you may have missed recently about developments affecting onsite dining.

Here’s your list for today:

Residents of the Masonic Village at Sewickley in Pennsylvania have come up with a novel way to address a staff shortage in the retirement community's dining services department: They gave $4,000 college scholarships to 11 servers. Residents in the community of 512 formed a dining services scholarship committee that raised more than $63,000 in the first six months of this year as part of what will become an annual campaign. To qualify, servers must have worked at least 312 hours, have submitted a short essay and application, and already have been attending or accepted to college. In the three months after the program was announced, five new servers were hired, as opposed to only one being hired in the previous three months.

Read more: Retirement living center finds a way to retain dining servers: Give them scholarships

Food insecurity for households with children declined to its lowest rate in two decades last year, according to a just released USDA report, as government assistance programs continued to blunt the effect of the coronavirus on the economy. The findings were in line with data last year showing that vast expansions of government aid helped reduce hunger, but experts warned that picture was almost certain to change as pandemic-era programs expire and inflation remains high.

Related:5 tech things: Robot food delivery expands to more campuses this fall

Read more: Food Insecurity for Families With Children Reached Two-Decade Low in 2021

Certified fair trade and organic açaí concept SAMBAZON has opened a new location at California State University, Northridge in the Campus Store Complex in partnership with Chartwells Higher Education. The opening menu includes SAMBAZON's Berry Açaí Bowl, Protein Açaí Bowl, Chocolate Peanut Butter Açaí Bowl and Strawberry Sunrise Açaí Bowl, and the shop also offers fresh fruit smoothies, oatmeal and coffee. "We are thrilled to expand our footprint and bring our SAMBAZON branded açaí bowl shop concept to CSUN's campus," says SAMBAZON Co-founder/CEO Ryan Black. "Opening our doors on a college campus like this is a major milestone."

Read more: SAMBAZON Açaí Bowls Debuts on Campus: California State University Northridge

Related:5 things: Google cafeteria worker unionization expanded during pandemic

Culinary medicine programs are emerging at medical schools to meet a critical need to improve nutrition education in an era of unprecedented diet-related health problems including obesity and cardiovascular disease, according to a review of programs by UT Southwestern researchers published in Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges. The programs utilize teaching kitchens to give health professionals practical skills to help patients make evidence-based dietary changes while celebrating nourishing, accessible, affordable, and delicious food, said lead author Jaclyn Albin, M.D., Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics who leads the Culinary Medicine program at UT Southwestern.

Read more: Culinary Medicine programs aim to improve nutrition education for doctors

The opening of Western Michigan University’s new student center will be delayed beyond the start of the spring semester, university leaders said. It’s the second announced delay for the opening after  officials said in June that supply chain issues and a tight labor market precluded a planned opening for fall 2022. In a recent letter to the campus community, administrators cited “uncertainty sourcing materials and competition for a limited pool of workers” as factors in an expected delay beyond the last-stated estimated completion date. The school had hoped for a January 2023 opening.

Read more: Opening of new WMU student center delayed again, beyond spring semester’s start

Bonus: Sodexo opens 100% plant-forward, gluten-free concept at Liberty University

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]