Auburn University students are participating in the Real Food Challenge to bring food to campus that is sustainably raised and ethically and locally sourced.
The students work alongside Tiger Dining in order to promote locally grown food.
They also have a garden where students can buy plots in to grow their own food.
"You can use it for anything you like," said Jaimen Perez, community garden manager. "You get the plot and we provide the water, and you can grow flowers, vegetables, whatever really."
Perez said people have grown everything from watermelon and okra to sunflowers and herbs.
The garden is open to anybody who wants to pay for a plot, but students have to pay $10, $20 or $40 for different plot sizes.
The Real Food Challenge is a national organization, and Auburn's chapter has had many events to raise awareness.
"It's a national organization, so they came up with this criteria that real food is ecologically found so that would mean like organically certified," said Sara Geonczy, dining committee head for The Real Food Challenge at Auburn.
They are trying to lower the use of energy, pesticides and herbicides.
"Our mission is to get 20 percent real food in the dining hall by 2020," said Rosa Cantrell, president of the Real Food Challenge at Auburn. "Real food is classified by us as humanely raised, fairly traded, locally stored or ecologically sound. The food needs to meet one of those criteria."
Geonczy said some places on campus already meet these criteria.
Foy Dining Hall offers local chicken, and local eggs are used in multiple dining venues.
The group is also responsible for the silverware that can be washed and reused in Tiger Dining.
Geonczy said this year their goal is to classify how much real food the campus is using.
"I want people to know what we stand for," Cantrell said. "What we love and what we care for is like sustainable food, food that nourishes everyone, that nourishes your body, that nourishes the community, that nourishes the farmer, that nourishes the person, the harvester, it nourishes the earth as a whole."
Cantrell said that it's not just about eating salads all the time.
She said if she wanted an Oreo, she would want it to be from a cookie company located approximately 100 miles away and that used organic chocolate.
Cantrell's main concern is how the food gets to campus, how it is harvested and if the people who harvest the food are treated fairly.
They have raised awareness off campus as well.
"(We) went to a local Wendy's who buys tomatoes from a farmer from a corporation that is known for negative treatment toward the workers, and we protested outside Wendy's," Cantrell said.
Cantrell said the chapter's dream is to work with the College of Agriculture and potentially build greenhouses. Greenhouses would allow the group to harvest vegetables in the winter so they can get them from campus instead of importing them from other places.
Auburn University's chapter of Real Food Challenge will have its first meeting Sept. 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the Auburn University Student Center Room 2310.
For more information on Real Food Challenge at Auburn, contact Jaimen Perez at AuburnCommunityGarden@gmail.com.
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