UNC’s Food Justice Week sponsors People’s Grocery keynote speaker

UNC students can access healthy food on campus — but that hasn’t always been the case, and it isn’t true everywhere.

“There are whole communities in our country who don’t have access to healthy food,” Nikki Henderson, executive director of People’s Grocery, said during a lecture Wednesday night.

The talk was the keynote event in UNC’s Food Justice Week, which started Monday.

Student organizations are using the week to encourage healthy, sustainable eating on campus.

Sophomore Meghan Robbins, a member of the Fair, Local, Organic student group, said student organizations have helped to bring healthy options to campus.

“We work with Carolina Dining Services to change little by little the way they spend money, and to help them do things like connect with local farmers,” she said.

“Carolina Dining Services has been ready and willing to not only listen to our feedback, but also initiate projects, such as 1.5.0. in bottom of Lenoir.”

She said her group aims to make fair, local and organic foods more accessible.

“FLO is interested primarily in raising awareness in the student body to let them know that they have options on where to eat and what types of food they can eat,” she said.

“FLO works on letting students know that they can and should eat better.”

But she said Carolina Dining Services faces constraints.
“Carolina Dining Services has taken on the challenge of building a really strong local food economy with limitations on money,” she said.

Senior Lauren Traugott-Campbell, who attended Henderson’s lecture, said it is important to spread the food justice initiative at UNC.

“We live in a university town where a lot of things are consolidated and we don’t have as much control over food,” she said.

“As someone who lived on campus for two years, it was frustrating to see the food options.”

Sophomore Katy Denault said people at the University can make a difference in the movement, both at the University and elsewhere.

“If people in the UNC community show care about food justice, it will spread to places that are impoverished,” she said.

Henderson also spoke about how students can help with the food justice movement.

“Leverage your privilege and leverage your power, but do so with integrity, grace and compassion,” she said.

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