Decade II
Project Leads: Rachel Kovinsky, Michelle Deng, Yasmin Ghaemmaghami
Sponsor: Berkeley Student Food Collective
TGIF Grant: $35,000.00
Project Theme: Agriculture and Food Justice
Project Description: Over the past decade, the Berkeley Student Food Collective (BSFC) has served as a consistent and accessible source of affordable, healthy, and sustainably-sourced food for the Berkeley community. The BSFC is ready and eager to move into its second decade of operations: but its ability to further serve students will hinge upon critical updates to its retail storefront and staffing model. With the help of TGIF, the BSFC will be able to move forward with these key changes, allowing the organization to both scale and expand its work and impact across all corners of campus. The TGIF funds will enable much needed structural renovations to the BSFC’s storefront, located directly across from the UC Berkeley campus on Bancroft Avenue. The funds will also allow for the hiring of part-time student staff members, who will ensure accountability, efficiency, and institutionalization throughout this project. These students will be responsible for measuring, analyzing, and compiling comprehensive reports on key sustainability metrics of this project. Together, these updates to the BSFC’s structural and organizational capacity will allow the organization to continue serving as a living classroom in which students can participate in democratic decision making about where their food is sourced, how it is sold, and what can be done to address larger issues of food insecurity and ecological injustice within their own communities.
Goals:1) Expand the BSFC’s capacity to combat escalating issues of food insecurity within the Berkeley campus and surrounding community
2) Empower and educate students, encouraging them to become leaders within their campus food system
3) Promote community building and engagement around matters of environmental and food justice
4) Continuing providing healthy, sustainable, and ethically produced food at an affordable price to Berkeley students throughout the coming decade