News
Thursday, November 6, 2014
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Grace Place looks to keep students fed Pantry feeds ones not living in dorms
If you go
Where: 401 Normal Road Hours: 5:30-7:30 p.m. the first and third Thursdays of every month Requirements: Must be a student with a OneCard and no meal plan
Salta Kendor Staff Writer
DeKalb | Katherine Zuidema said her belief that students need to focus on school and not hunger and homlessness led to the creation of the Huskies Student Food Pantry. The food pantry, Grace Place Campus Ministry, 401 Normal Road, opened March 20, but Oct. 6 marked the one-year anniversary of when Zuidema, employer relations specialist at Career Services, presented the idea to her supervisor. Zuidema said for every 100 students, 13 are food-challenged, meaning they do not have enough food to eat. When the food pantry opened in March, only seven students came; the pantry now serves as many as 65 students each day it is open. The pantry is open 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. today to students with a OneCard and without a meal plan. “There’s a certain stigma attached to having the need for food. We ignore that,” said Bill Montgomery, business manager for Career Services, whom works closely with Zuidema. “We don’t care who you are; if you say you need food then you can have food, but you can’t be on a meal plan. That’s the only thing.”
Ryan Ocasio | Northern Star
Amy Fallon, campus pastor at Grace Place Campus Ministry, stands in the food pantry area Wednesday at Grace Place. Campus Ministry Food Pantry is open the first and third Thursdays of every month.
Students with food emergencies are able to shop from the food pantry shelves and choose items like they would in a grocery store. The pantry limits each student to one bag of food with items like fresh vegetables from the NIU Communiversity Gardens and a loaf of bread. Campus food drives and
Community garden to be built for high school Project to help kids learn about farming Jessica Christofersen Staff Writer
DeKalb | DeKalb County Commu-
nity Gardens plans to start a garden west of DeKalb High School so students can get their hands dirty while learning about agriculture. Dan Kenney, DeKalb Community Gardens director, said the organization leased a 4-acre plot west of the school, 501 W. Dresser Road, from Shodeen Group for $1 a year. Sarah Peterson, DeKalb High School agricultural teacher and Future Farmers of America adviser, will help manage the field and begin working with students to plant crops by mid-April.
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Before properties are made available they need to meet certain qualifications such as being dormant or organic for a period of years without fertilizers. This area can instantly be used.” Nancy Proesel DeKalb County Community Gardens board member
“I’ll help my FFA students and [agriculture] students organize and get things done ... and I think we will take about half of it to do a project on our own on it, and the other half the Community Gardens will use to grow produce,” Peterson said. Peterson said the high school has land where volunteers grow corn to fund agricultural school projects,
but those two locations — one in Malta and one near the DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport, 3232 Pleasant St. — are not used for educating the students because they are too far from the school. Peterson said the new garden will give the students an opportunity to work in the field during the day and help fund Future Farmers of America programs by selling produce grown in the garden. The field will produce pumpkins, gourds and squash. The donated property is ideal because it hasn’t been used for commercial farming or other purposes, said Nancy Proesel, board member of DeKalb County Community Gardens. “Before properties are made available they need to meet certain qualifications such as being dormant or organic for a period of years without fertilizers,” Proesel said. “This area can instantly be used.” Kenney and Proesel said the location is also good because it is close to other gardens like the NIU Communiversity Gardens on the east side of Anderson Hall. This will make it easy to move equipment needed to maintain the garden, Kenney said. The location will also expand the availability of vegetables to those in the Hillcrest neighborhood who wish to volunteer, Kenney said. Volunteers are allowed to take produce home. DeKalb County Community Gardens has harvested more than 21,000 pounds of produce from nearly 40 sites county-wide this year. Most of that has been distributed to local food pantries, Kenney said.
the Northern Illinois Food Bank in Geneva have been key factors in supplying the pantry with food, especially the food bank, which provides food at a fraction of the cost, Zuidema said. The money for the pantry’s purchase of the food comes through donations. Montgomery said he is satisfied
with the number of students served but knows there is a greater need among students. “If you do some math, there are 11,000 students on campus,” Montgomery said. “Six thousand of those students are in dormitories with meal plans, so roughly 5-6,000 students are not. You
take 13 percent of that number [to represent food-challenged students], that’s a big number. Sixty-five is peanuts.” The food pantry is able to serve five students at a time, which Montgomey said shows the need for an expansion of the space. In addition to a bigger space, Zuidema said she would like a refrigerator or freezer, which is a requirement of the Northern Illinois Food Bank. The food back has been understanding of the pantry’s lack of equipment, she said. Sandy Carey, food service administrator at Neptune Dining, said she has had experiences with food-challenged students, including the time Stevenson Dining staff, with approval, arranged for a student to get food from the dining hall as if he or she was on a meal plan. Carey said more avenues must be created to help needy students. “With the economic situation we have, we need to help students so that they don’t continue to be homeless,” Carey said.
FOCUS DeKalb wants more business-friendly ordinance Owners question annual inspections Margaret Maka Staff Writer
DeKalb | A DeKalb business group discussed amending a proposed business inspection ordinance Wednesday at a meeting. Members of FOCUS DeKalb, a group of local business and commercial property owners that formed after the city proposed the Commercial/Industrial Building Responsibility Code Ordinance, addressed citizens’ and business owners’ concerns in regard to the ordinance and explained their plans to make the ordinance more businessfriendly. The measures proposed by the city include annual inspections at a cost to business owners and registration for all buildings. “A business-friendly community has incentives for people who want to come here and live here,” said FOCUS DeKalb member Mike Carpenter. “Everything about this community is shrinking and people are exiting.” FOCUS DeKalb attorney Mike Coghlan said there are discrepancies between DeKalb’s proposed ordinance and health and safety inspection case law. Amendments to the city ordinance put forth by FOCUS DeKalb include measures such as a mandatory 3/4 vote for any “business-hostile” measures taken, less restrictions on public record disclosures, publicizing and providing information
Ryan Ocasio | Northern Star
Focus DeKalb attorney Mike Coghlan speaks about how he thinks a portion of the original material within the Commercial/Industrial Building Responsibility Code Ordinance is unconstitutional and discusses proposed amendments during a meeting Wednesday at 1719 Sycamore Road.
following inspections and new restrictions regarding privacy in the home for home-based businesses under the Fourth Amendment. “The FOCUS ordinance adds things that city staff did not have in there which are specific protections for industry,” Coghlan said. “And it’s not so much the protections, it’s the acknowledgement that the federal case law and the United States constitution are involved in a city ordinance. They cannot be ignored.” There was no public hearing
when the original bill was proposed Sept. 8. Although it didn’t pass, there has been backlash from business owners, said FOCUS DeKalb member Will Heinisch. In response to the backlash, the city has proposed a new timeline for the bill and is planning for a public hearing on Jan. 12. FOCUS DeKalb urged forum participants to attend a City Council meeting Nov. 10 as the proposed inspection ordinance will be an agenda item.