Activists pressure UCD to drop Pepsi

By Monica Stark Enterprise staff writer

The UC Davis Beverage Rights Industry Working Group will soon decide whether to renew an exclusive contract with PepsiCo, the beverage choice on campus, for the past decade. A new PRC would lock UC Davis into another decade-long contract that limits beverage choices on campus to only Pepsi products.

Activists say that without an exclusive contract, opportunities for UCD to partner with smaller companies with “better track records in promoting health and the environment” would be possible.

The contract expires on

Monica stark/enterprise photo UC Davis student activists march on campus on June 1, protesting the university’s exclusive pouring deal with Pepsi.

Aug. 31, 2024. Many group members have expressed serious concerns about continuing with pouring rights contracts. The group meets next on June 23.

Because the contract and others she read do not align with UC Davis and UC Davis Health’s mission and

See PEPSI, Page A3

“Of all the tech disasters I’ve witnessed and tried to help untangle, the one I’ve come to see as most emblematic of these forces — and the ways we consistently misunderstand them — is the story of California’s unemployment insurance in the first year of the pandemic,” Pahlka writes in the book “Recoding America: Why Government is Failing In the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better.”

See RECKONING, Page A3

Odd Fellows announce 2023 scholarship awards

Enterprise staff

The Davis Odd Fellows Lodge No. 169 recently awarded $18,000 in scholarships to highschool and college students pursuing their higher education goals.

Veronica “Phoenix”

Pederson of Davis received a $5,000 scholarship through Davis Odd Fellows Charities Inc., a nonprofit corporation that provides funding for students who have gone through the foster care system while maintaining high grades.

“This is a special scholarship funded entirely by a major corporation back east,” said David

Rosenberg of the Odd Fellows. “It targets deserving orphans and foster children who have struggled through those systems and have persevered.”

Pederson, a Da Vinci High School graduate, will attend Sacramento State University in the fall.

Six students each received $1,500 from the Officer Natalie Corona Davis Odd Fellows Memorial Scholarship, created in honor of Corona, who was killed the line of duty on Jan. 10, 2019, while investigating See SCHOLARSHIP, Page A3