Robert Egger´s Piece of Mind

During the last two weeks I visited two of the DC Central Kitchen’s 20 Campus Kitchens. First I went to one of my top 10 schools, the University of Vermont in Burlington and then I rolled to one of my new favorites, the  Minnesota State University at Mankato, which is the site of our first rural site.

And next Monday I’ll be on the road again, visiting an up and coming Campus Kitchens at William Jewel College in Liberty, MO.

It’s been a year or so since I paid a visited, and as always, I thought I was prepared for what I’d find. I wasn’t!!!

EACH of these labs of love is completely out of control, and I was literally knocked over by the caliber of the efforts they are undertaking. But that’s the entire point of the Campus Kitchen Project—to demonstrate what a new generation of leaders can create if you gave them solid training and then turn over the keys to the car.

Campus Kitchens was born on a trip to visit my folks, who live out in rural Indiana. I was vexed by how many of the community kitchens we helped launch (with advice, on-site training and totally free access to all the materials we had developed over the years) were now building fancy new, very expensive kitchens.

(Side note—modern industrial kitchens cost about $250 a square foot to build, so a new 10,000 sq. ft. kitchen would take $2.5 mill out of a local economy…which is a big ass bucket of dough)

Anyway…as I was driving, I noticed something. Sitting in a big field in this small town was a brand new high school—with a fat new kitchen in it. As I looked at it, I realized that it would be closed all afternoon, all night and all weekend. The town was surrounded by farmers trying to find a market for all their produce and fruits. And that town was full of aging citizens who would need meals soon.

I stopped the car and thought about this.

The Federal Government reimburses $5.00 for Meals on Wheels dinners. “Damn” (I thought)…you could keep a lot of farmer’s solvent by sourcing local foods for those meals, which would give a new generation of seniors the kind of locally grown foods they will soon be demanding anyway.

And…the old service model demands that all those kids had to leave school to get their community service hours!!!

Hmmmm…

If you could use that kitchen in the off hours (and there are close to 70,000 school cafeterias out there) then students could get service opportunities right on campus by helping to tend a community garden or prepare meals in that kitchen. Maybe other students could deliver those meals to seniors in the town—or better yet—invite them to an inter-generational after school program in the cafeteria…where they could help mentor younger students. Maybe they could ALL work in the community garden together, or develop joint service projects. Finally—some students who wanted to learn about social enterprise could also prepare meals to go for working family’s to buy when they picked up their kids after school, rather than run to the fried chicken stand or the burger shack. Any profit could be used to pay the salary of the music instructor that the current budget couldn’t afford.

Put all that together, Bruthas and Sistas, and you’ve got the makings of a bad ass new system made up exclusively of existing resources – which is how we roll at DCCK.

Flash forward to today. We just opened our 20^th Campus Kitchen…and we’ve got ten more in the pipeline.  But the story isn’t in the numbers—it’s in the fact that each of these projects is run by students. LOTS of folks talk about empowering young leaders—WE DO IT, and it works.

As we say to all the leaders—it’s YOUR show. Anything short of felony is OK with us. And you will be 150% blow away, as I am, by what they’ve done.

I urge you to check out the Campus Kitchen Project—they are rocking a new world!!!!!

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Well…of all the city’s to break the mayor forum mold, it had to be Austin.

Organized by the Austin Area Human Services Association  the event drew all the candidates for mayor, as well as the candidates for the city council.

The cool part—all their questions and a podcast of the candidate’s responses will soon be online. THIS is part of the V3 campaigns long range plan–to make the questions asked at each forum, as well as the replies, available for any and all to learn from or emulate.

But El Paso is not far behind. Check out my friend Frank Lopez’s effort that will take place tomorrow.

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This is going to be one of those fast and furious notes from the journey, as I prepare to roll out to Austin for one of the first Mayors races of 09, and a kick-ass nonprofit forum thrown in part by my great friend and colleague, David Davenport, who runs the Capital Area Food Bank.

First of all—I’ve had a staggering week of witnessing the future of social innovation. Last week, Julia, my “at-home-for-spring-break-babygrrrl” and I rolled up to NYC for a day together and a speech for my friends at Starlingbloc, one of the country’s baddest nest of new thinkers. In fact, between the DC chapter of SB alumni and the national office, run by Jo Opot, I have had the pleasure of working with tons of really bright young thinkers who are rolling up their sleeves and re-interpreting or merging charity and business.

The year’s gig, held at NYU, was a virtual Lollapalooza of speakers. I was sandwiched in-between Cheryl Dorsey from Echoing Green, and Ami Dar of Idealist, so you know the hits where flying and kids eyes were all but rolling back in their heads for all the juicy info we were pouring in their ears….but THAT’S the point of any gathering in 2009—arming the audience with ideas they can use, right here, right now.

Anyway…to close this loop–today I was judging a cool Social E competition at Georgetown University, and you MUST check out one of two big winners. All five of the finalists were righteous, but this one young dude named Shyam Sundaram has one of those ideas that make me thrilled to be part of this movement. It’s called Solarcycle, and I so suggest you check it OUT to see what this young man and his team has got going on with recycled chip bags. They are using them to fashion an affordable stove, as well as a water purification system. Given the death rate due to drinking impure water, and the ecological disaster that is caused by deforestation (using wood for fire/heat/light), the panel of judges thought this was a real game changing idea.

And now to the BIG MISTAKE. I’m a serious believer in owning up when you make a mistake. A few weeks back, colleague at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy issued “Criteria for Philanthropy at its Best”, a report that was met with some pretty intense, coast-to-coast criticism. Some of it was mine.

Here is the deal. They made some provocative suggestions about how foundations should consider allocating their resources, including some bold guidelines for minority inclusion in both the roster of grant recipients as well as in the board room of the foundations that give them out. They also seemed to be suggesting that grants to human services or minority communities outweighted grants to say…a univeristy.

However…the word “mandate” jumped up (or was tossed out) and a lot of folks ran with it. I joined the pack.

Simply put…when you know (and respect) the group that issues a report, and you disagree, the VERY least you can do is to call and meet to talk it through. 99% of the time, you learn that your worst fears are often unfounded. If I had done that—if I had afforded professional courtesy to a colleague—I would have had my worst fears mitigated.

In fact (and this is Part II of my confession)….if I had called I might have come to see that they were trying to get a dialogued going by being purposefully provocative (which they do well). As a fellow provacateur, I so should have recognized that tune.

Look….when times are tough, and most are sitting on their hands, you sometimes have to challenge them to walk a mile just to get them to consider the inch they need to move to get some real breakthrough thinking stimulated. That was, in large part, their tactic, and its exactly what they accomplished. Our sector is finally on fire with rich conversations. Like a good gumbo, there’s a ton of odds and ends in the mix right now, and I for one am thrilled to savor the simmer.

So….young leaders….learn an important trick from this old dog. Keep an open mind, never hesitate to reach out when dialogue is an option, and learn that seeing smoke does not mean you have to join a chorus yelling “fire!!!”

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It was a brutal, hard day in Lawrence, KS when in August of 1863, pro-south/pro-slavery raiders led by William Quantrill torched the town. High on hate–the Missouri meth of the day–Quantrill’s 400 men rode into town in a fury, hell bent of sending a message to pro-Union “jayhawkers” that their efforts to secure a state free of slavery would not stand.

It did. 

And it was in that spirit of new ideas replacing old that I walked those same streets over the past two days as I visited Kansas University, at the invitation of the KU Hillel chapter, to talk about change, social enterprise, Campus Kitchens and all our ongoing efforts at DCCK. 

I really love college towns. They emanate openness. They have great graffiti. They are the last bastion of used CD stores. There’s always a whiff of social enterprise in the air from the fair trade coffee shops and local produce markets that have been at the forefront of the growing social enterprise movement in America. Most of all…they are full of the idealism and enthusiasm of young men and women who have grand expectations of the life they will lead and the world they will inherit. 

And in all my gigs in college towns, I try really hard to help them keep true to those dreams of youth by arming them with the tools they’ll need to stay focused, ferocious and full of hot spit and cheap beer. 

Well…that’s what works for me. 

They really rolled it out for me. Mad props go out to the KU Hillel team (who visited DCCK earlier this year during their alternative spring break), and particularly The Free Store Five who took me out on my first night there for local beer and their take on the scene. 

The next day I was up early for a meeting with local service providers. Like many small towns, theirs is a hodge-podge of programs. The Lawrence Community Shelter holds 30 by code, but often 50+ by necessity. Across the street, the Lawrence Interdenominational Community Kitchen serves about 170 at each of their meals (and I owe them plenty for inviting me for a great lunch). But that’s all about to shift. Down the road a spell, the local Salvation Army Family Shelter is about to close it doors, forcing the town to confront a new reality. They have to come together and deal with what comes next. Simply put–they have to build something new. 

This drama is being played out across America–where local Chambers, City Council’s or landlords have ignored at best, or been hostile at worst to programs that serve the “chronics” or those who cannot or will not fit into the mold. You can almost hear the sound of their minds shutting down when the subject of a new shelter comes up.

But Lawrence has all the makings of a really cool future. As more and more groups have come to see that developing economic impact studies can take the wind out of the argument that homeless programs are a drain on the local economy or deter people coming to frequent main street businesses, the case can now be made that programs like those I visited in Lawrence actually HELP the local economy. Heck…the shelter and the kitchen are already partnering on a cool little dog treat business which creates income, job opportunities….and–kaCHING–revenue for the city.

So, by the time that KU students, local service providers and community leaders came together to talk later that night, we had the student union auditorium JAMMIN with ideas. 

They have a road ahead, to be sure…but man oh man are they loaded with what to takes to make it. Energy, ideas, the ability to make a solid economic case for a new community opportunty center, a willingness to partner, GREAT established leadership, young folks ready to step UP (and even run for office)…but most of all—NECESSITY!!!

Don’t waste it, Jayhawks…..or like Quantrill’s pissed off ghost, I’ll come back and light to town back up. 

ROCK CHALK. 

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