{"id":186072,"date":"2023-10-31T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T18:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=186072"},"modified":"2024-01-04T21:04:17","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T07:04:17","slug":"uh-maui-college-culinary-students-packing-produce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2023\/10\/31\/uh-maui-college-culinary-students-packing-produce\/","title":{"rendered":"UH<\/abbr> Maui College culinary students pivot from food prep to packing produce"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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(Photo credit: UH<\/abbr> Maui College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thursday mornings are particularly busy\u2014and rewarding\u2014for the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Maui College\u2019s culinary arts program<\/a> purchasing class. Instructor Natasha Joslin and her seven students, along with some campus and community volunteers, pack up 200 boxes of beautiful local produce\u2014cabbage, sweet potatoes, bok choy, onions, eggplant, kale, bananas, tangerines and more\u2014that are distributed later in the day to UH<\/abbr> Maui College students and community members affected by the August wildfires.<\/p>\n

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(Photo credit: UH<\/abbr> Maui College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“The folks who get the boxes are filled with so much gratitude and joy, they are overwhelmed with aloha,” said Lily Weber, a culinary arts student. “It\u2019s a beautiful sight to see!”<\/p>\n

Pivot from food prep<\/h2>\n

For two months after the fires, the culinary arts program\u2019s Pāʻina<\/span> Building was a food preparation hub<\/a> where a total of 200,000 meals were prepped, cooked and sent out for delivery for members of the community who had been displaced by fires.<\/p>\n

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(Photo credit: UH<\/abbr> Maui College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“We felt as though we wanted to continue providing something to the community, and we also knew the culinary arts program team needed to get back to their curriculum,” said Laura Lees Nagle, dean of career and technical education. “In discussions with Common Ground Collective<\/a> (a non-profit that promotes food security, educational and economic opportunities in Maui County), the produce boxes project seemed like an easy next step. Matson had already generously donated their refrigerated container for our use for a few weeks of meal prep and they instantly told us we could continue to use it until the end of the year.”<\/p>\n

The project is supported by Common Ground Collective and the UH<\/abbr> Foundation Feed Maui Fund<\/a>. The Lion\u2019s Club of Maui is also providing bags of rice.<\/p>\n

Supporting local farmers<\/h2>\n
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(Photo credit: UH<\/abbr> Maui College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“It\u2019s a project that definitely falls in line with purchasing and inventory,” said Joslin. “In addition to helping to continue to feed the community, we are able to support our local farmers, many of whom lost business as a result of the fires.”<\/p>\n

It’s anticipated that the produce box project will continue through at least the end of the fall 2023 semester.<\/p>\n

“I feel so blessed to be able to give back to my community,” Weber said. “I love to see our college and local farmers come together to give back in any way we can. I love being able to be a part of the great work!”<\/p>\n

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(Photo credit: UH<\/abbr> Maui College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UH<\/abbr> Maui College culinary arts students have been packing and distributing produce for community members impacted by the Maui fires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[377,1597,60],"class_list":["post-186072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-culinary-arts-program","tag-maui-wildfires","tag-maui-college","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186072"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189737,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186072\/revisions\/189737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}