Helping Covenant Soup Kitchen
On Saturday I helped UConn student Aseel Eid, who directs the SOS Food Recovery Program in Towers Dining Hall, her friend Brian Thomas, Dennis Pierce (Director of Dining Services), and several UConn Dining Services Staff in making a food delivery to the Covenant Soup Kitchen in Willimantic, and then helping serve the Saturday lunch with a group of volunteers from Storrs’ St. Thomas Aquinas. UConn’s Community Outreach provided the van, driven by History major Andrew Folsom, who was cramming for an assignment as we loaded food at each dining-hall stop.
This initiative on our Storrs campus is a close collaboration between our Community Outreach office in Student Affairs and Dining Services. Community Outreach trains and prepares the student leader who in turn who recruits, trains and manages the student participants. Gina Brassaw in Community Outreach works very closely with Dining representatives to ensure that this program has developed systematically over the last three years.  Dining Services provides the food and staff on campus to freeze and package the materials. Both aspects are crucial to making the program possible. Dining and CO need each other to make this program work.
The SOS Food Recovery program delivers surplus food to the Covenant Soup Kitchen from Towers Dining Hall. Much of the food has been flash frozen to ensure that it is fresh, or it’s been maintained at a health-department required temperature. The program serves a dual purpose as it puts our left-over food to good use and also provides nourishment to those who need it the most. The SOS Food Recovery program focuses on delivering and providing food to Covenant. We were fortunate to be able to help serve lunch on Saturday also. The program aims to have consistent deliveries to the Soup Kitchen on a weekly basis during the year.
Here’s Alex Morely, Dining Services Area Assistant Manager at North, with Aseel Eid and Brian Thomas, in the kitchen at North. They’re “temping” the refrigerated food that’s being picked up for delivery to Covenant. “Temping” means taking the food’s temperature and recording it on forms, so that we can be sure that food has remained at a safe temperature throughout the pickup and delivery process.
Here we’re on the loading dock behind South, taking containers of food to our van for transport. Joe Ferris, Area Assistant Manager at South, is wearing the tie. Aseel is taking care of the records.
Unloading the van (or loading, I can’t remember which) at Covenant in Willimantic. This insulated container for transporting food in aluminum trays is called a “cambro.”
Covenant Director Paul Doyle greets us and our food with more thermometers, in the receiving area at Covenant.
We joined up with a group of volunteers from Storrs’ St. Thomas Aquinas, who were at Covenant for their monthly volunteering effort there. Some of the folks from St. Thomas volunteer at Covenant more than once a month. They were a friendly, lively crowd, and included several UConn alums.
Here’s the serving line at Covenant, open for business. I’m at the right, serving cupcakes from the UConn Bakery and also home-made ones from the St. Thomas volunteers.
And here we are back on campus, returning cambros at Shippee. That’s Andrew Folsom (of Extreme Measures) on the extreme left – our intrepid driver – myself, Aseel, and Brian. Thanks to Sal Murana for some of the photos, and to Paul Doyle for welcoming us to Covenant.
