UH-Maui College students pivot from food prep to packing produce
Members of the University of Hawai‘i Maui College’s Culinary Arts Program help pack boxes of local produce for those impacted by the August wildfires. Photos courtesy UH-Maui College
A vibrantly colored box of local produce ranges from pineapples to eggplants to cabbages and more.
Members of the University of Hawai‘i Maui College’s Culinary Arts Program help pack boxes of local produce for those impacted by the August wildfires. Photos courtesy UH-Maui College
A vibrantly colored box of local produce ranges from pineapples to eggplants to cabbages and more.
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The Maui News
University of Hawai'i Maui College culinary students who helped cook thousands of meals in the wake of the August wildfires are now shifting to packing produce for those in need.
On Thursday mornings, instructor Natasha Joslin and the seven students in her Culinary Arts Program purchasing class, along with some campus and community volunteers, pack up 200 boxes of local produce -- cabbage, sweet potatoes, bok choy, onions, eggplant, kale, bananas, tangerines and more -- that are distributed later in the day to students and community members affected by the wildfires.
"The folks who get the boxes are filled with so much gratitude and joy, they are overwhelmed with aloha," Lily Weber, a culinary arts student, said in a UH news release Tuesday. "It's a beautiful sight to see!"
It's the next step of community service for the culinary arts students, who spent the two months after the fires preparing and cooking a total of 200,000 meals in the program's Pa'ina Building and sending them out for delivery to displaced residents.
"We felt as though we wanted to continue providing something to the community, and we also knew the culinary arts program team needed to get back to their curriculum," said Laura Lees Nagle, dean of career and technical education.
After talking to Common Ground Collective, a food security-focused nonprofit that helps farmers make use of surplus produce, "the produce boxes project seemed like an easy next step," she said.
"Matson had already generously donated their refrigerated container for our use for a few weeks of meal prep and they instantly told us we could continue to use it until the end of the year," she added.
Joslin said the produce box project benefits both residents in need and local farmers.
"It's a project that definitely falls in line with purchasing and inventory," Joslin said. "In addition to helping to continue to feed the community, we are able to support our local farmers, many of whom lost business as a result of the fires."
The initiative is expected to continue through at least the end of the fall 2023 semester, the UH news release said.
It is supported by Common Ground Collective and the UH Foundation Feed Maui Fund. The Lions Club of Maui is also providing bags of rice.