With the abundant assortment of State Street restaurants, food trucks, dining halls and instant food delivery services, it’s no secret that Madison is a utopia of delicious cuisine.
This is why UW students like sophomore Katherine Kokkinias are working to establish a campus chapter of Campus Kitchens Project, a nationwide organization that recovers unused food from campus dining to serve as meals in the community.
“I saw the wasting of food in the dining halls and was bothered by it,” Kokkinias explained. “I decided I could either complain about it or try to get something done.”
Kokkinias and two other team members, UW-Madison students Colin McReavy and Meaghan Sargent, applied for a $5,000 AARP grant through CKP. This grant will help get a CKP chapter at UW-Madison started and support it during its initial stages.
Currently, CKP has 39 chapters across colleges and high schools nationwide. Wisconsin alone is already home to three CKP chapters at UW-Eau Claire, UW-Green Bay and Marquette University. Kokkinias and her teammates have consulted students from these other schools for advice on how to get a similar program up and running on the UW-Madison campus.
The sophomore shared that starting a campus CKP chapter has been challenging.
“Sometimes when people talk to students they think they’re not too serious about this, but once you keep coming back, they see that you really are adamant and get on board,” Kokkinias said.
She expressed special gratitude to UW Dining, UW Housing and the Office of Sustainability for their support.
Voting for the grant will begin Tuesday at noon and run until the following Tuesday, Oct. 21. Anyone is able to vote online and can submit one vote each day at campuskitchens.org/uw-madison.
Kokkinias said she hopes her fellow Badgers are considerate of those around them who are hungry and remember that hunger has no one true image.
“[Hungry people are] right outside your door. Sometimes they’re living in the same building that you are,” Kokkinias said. “You never know what someone’s going through.”
