A turkey on every table

Act locally: That's what a group of Wheaton students did when they heard that the Cupboard of Kindness, Norton's community food pantry, was short of resources to serve needy families this Thanksgiving. They also acted quickly--conducting an emergency fund-raising drive that collected over $700 in one week.

The students' effort covered the cost of Thanksgiving food baskets to be distributed by the food pantry, which serves about 40 local families twice a month.

The students in Professor Donna Kerner's anthropology course "Feast or Famine: The Ecology and Politics of Food" volunteer at the food pantry as part of the service-learning component of the course and normally deliver the Thanksgiving baskets to shut-ins in the local community. When pantry director Valerie Goddard visited the class earlier this month, she told the students that donations to the organization had decreased during the economic downturn. For the first time, the pantry did not have sufficient resources to provide Thanksgiving dinners to Norton residents in need.

The students went into high gear, placing contribution envelopes around campus, knocking on dorm room doors and soliciting donations at college events. With help from the Office of Service, Social Responsibility and Spirituality, the Provost's Office, Aramark food service, and faculty administrative assistants, the students completed their fund drive in time for the turkeys to be ordered for the pantry's food distribution on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

Pantry director Goddard said that Wheaton's contributions and volunteer participation have been "wonderful," noting that the partnership "works both ways, since students learn a lot from the experience."

The Wheaton community's efforts on behalf of the pantry have been on-going. Aramark collected over 100 non-perishable food items at a faculty-staff lunch during Thanksgiving week. Earlier this month, John Mitchell, an organic farmer at Heirloom Harvest Community Farm in Middleboro, chose to donate his honorarium to the food drive when he visited campus to speak on the topic "Thinking Globally, Eating Locally."

Guest lectures and community service are key components of the "Feast or Famine" course, in which students examine the cultural aspects of food and nutrition as well as the ecological, economic and political factors that cause famine and food shortage at home and abroad.