NURF: A Not-So-Brief History
Real Food at NU, or NURF, began with a coffee date during the Polar Vortex of 2014. I was approached by a Real Food Challenge Regional Organizer named Molly Abbattista, who had heard about my food activism on campus. She approached me with the idea of launching a Real Food Challenge Campus Commitment campaign at Northwestern. Over the following months and many, many cups of coffee, Molly tried to convince me that Northwestern was the right place for a Real Food campaign.
I was taken with the idea of the Real Food Challenge. I liked that it defined “real food” as food that was ecologically sound, local or community based, fair trade, OR humane - touching on the economic, environmental, and ethical aspects of the food system. However, I was skeptical that such an interdisciplinary and radical movement could take root at Northwestern. Just weeks earlier, President Schapiro had written an Op Ed in the Washington Post declaring that he would never sign a student petition. After a full quarter of conversations, I told her I would think about it over spring break.
Over spring break, I took stock of my time at Northwestern. Two years were gone; I had passed half my time at school with little to show for it. I decided that, with my remaining years, I wanted to try and do something worthwhile on campus that would affect it for years. During spring break, I also met a person without whom the campaign would never have existed: Colleen Fitzgerrell. We both signed up for a week long backpacking trip in Georgia, and during a trial run I told her about the organization I was thinking of starting. She seemed interested and told me to keep her informed. Later, her interest grew into full leadership responsibility equal to my own, starting with an introductory workshop.
Colleen, Molly and I organized an introductory workshop for those interested in food justice during spring quarter. We had about 20 attendees; I remember being excited that even a single person would show up. That alone was the proof I needed to see that a movement like this could exist at Northwestern. Many of the people who attended that first workshop have remained involved to this day, including one of the current co-directors, Kara Rodby.
NURF grew from a single workshop into a fledgling movement by the end of Spring Quarter 2014. We established a team of 10 dedicated co-organizers, all from different years and disciplines at Northwestern. We began the process of spreading our message among interested students and educating them about what “real food” is. We tried to reach out to Sodexo, our food service provider, but didn’t get much of a response for months on end. An essential part of signing the commitment is running the Real Food Calculator, a tool that uses the school’s database to determine what percentage of our food is “real.” Unfortunately, we needed permission from Sodexo to access their receipts and begin to analyze our purchasing habits. Despite that setback, we ended the 2013-2014 school year on a high note with a growing and passionate team.
With no sign of administrative progress in sight, we began the next school year with the goal of galvanizing student support. Over the following months, we would launch a photo petition, a letter writing campaign, and many panel, speaker, and screening events designed to publicize our cause and reach a broad audience. We reached out to every professor, every class, every listserv that might intersect with our goals as an organization. We hosted the Real Food Challenge Midwest Retreat, where students from all around the Midwest came to help us collect petition signatures all around campus. As our public profile grew, so did our event attendance. Our screening of “Food Chains,” a documentary about migrant worker rights, brought 100 people in to learn more about food justice issues and our organization. Not bad for a group that had launched barely half a year ago!
While grassroots support was essential to the success of our campaign, Northwestern’s administration particularly responded to demonstrations of organized student support from various student organizations and recognized campus leaders. We were able to build that support by successfully passing an ASG resolution in support of Real Food, and meeting with campus leaders in ASG who could help us better understand the dynamics and relationship in the administration. We also benefitted from continuous support and event promotion from our various partner organizations, including Wild Roots, SEED, Fossil Free NU, College Feminists, and NUCHR, among others.
Once we could show the support of the student body in our ASG resolution and form relationships with key student leaders, we began to make progress with Northwestern and Sodexo’s administration. Eventually, at the end of Winter Quarter, Sodexo agreed to let us run the Real Food Calculator, and brought on two of our students as part-time interns so that they could do the work. It was a huge victory for our campaign, and signalled a changing of the tides in the administrative realm.
As we were building a relationship with Sodexo’s administration, we also began to meet with Northwestern’s administration. Specifically, Julie Payne-Kirchmeier and Rob Whittier from the Office of Sustainability met with us several times over spring quarter. They, along with the new head of NU Dining, Ken Field, were able to help us work out the nitty-gritty of signing the commitment before we had the chance to present it to President Schapiro. Over the following weeks of Spring Quarter, we met each weekend to do research about local farms and low hanging fruits for product shifts, until both Julie and Rob said they would recommend for President Schapiro to sign the commitment.
After an 18-month campaign, we were ready. In the week before the meeting, we compiled a 60 page pitch document, outlining our plan for implementation over the next year, and had our friends help us run mock meetings so we could be prepared for our presentation. Furthermore, we held a Rally for Real Food, a concert in the Wild Roots garden attended by over 100 people, that we used to film a short video asking President Schapiro to sign the commitment. On the day of the meeting, when we sat down in his office, President Schapiro asked immediately where he could sign! No one was expecting such a positive response from someone who had declared, at the beginning of our campaign, that he was against signing student petitions on principle. President Schapiro’s signing of the campus commitment made Northwestern the first Big 10 school and first Midwestern university to commit to real food.
Since our victory, the team has been hard at work with continuing to spread our message among the student body. This year, we ran our first Food Week (organized around National Food Day), where we put together a week of programming about sustainable eating. We were able to bring in cooking demonstrations, farmer’s markets, a tour of sustainable urban agriculture in Chicago, movie screenings, you name it. During Food Week, Northwestern was awarded with an Award of Achievement from the Humane Society of the US, thanks to our work in Real Food at NU. Looking forward, we are continuing to bring together students from all over campus to celebrate and learn more about the food system. We recently fully funded our fall event, Food and Friends, via the Northwestern Alumni Association. Food and Friends will bring together students from all parts of campus for a harvest meal, and break down into smaller conversations about different aspects of sustainable and ethical eating.
Our implementation initiatives since then include forming a Food Systems Working Group (FSWG) comprised of producers, Sodexo employees, Northwestern administration and run by students. The purpose of the FSWG - pronounced Fizz-Wig - is revolutionary in that it puts students in charge of Northwestern’s Real Food policy and purchasing decisions. Since the creation of the FSWG earlier this year, we have finalized our Real Food Policy and priorities, and are in the process of putting our implementation into a multi-year action plan. Our analyst program has doubled in size. Though it turns out that our Real Food Percentage was much lower than we had initially anticipated, we have begun to make product shifts, such as sourcing all of our produce from Midwest Foods Co-op.
NURF has completely transformed my life at Northwestern. It is my crowning achievement, and my pride and joy. As graduation looms, I am soothed by the fact that I am leaving Northwestern’s food policy in the hands of some of the hardest and most creative workers I know. On this blog, you will read about the work that they will be doing over the next few years, until our commitment of 20% by 2020 is realized. Onward!
