Real Food Campus Commitment Lunch with President Simon

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Imagine a world where all we eat is real food; what does this look like to you? On November 9, the Office of Sustainability partnered with Lehigh Dining Services to host a Real Food Campus Commitment lunch and signing ceremony with President John Simon.  At this event, students, faculty, and staff got a glimpse of what this world might look like at Lehigh. The purpose of this lunch was to communicate to the campus community Lehigh’s commitment to including more local, ecological, fair trade, and humane food in the dining halls. One of Lehigh's sustainability goals is to reach 20 percent real food (local, ecological, fair, humane) by 2020.

In support of this particular campus sustainability goal, President Simon officially signed the Real Food Campus Commitment back in the spring to make Lehigh’s position known at a national level. Lehigh is one of just three colleges and universities in Pennsylvania—and 83 nationally—to sign the Real Food pledge. 

At this family style, real food lunch, attendees celebrated Lehigh making this commitment and showed others nationally that Lehigh is serious about supporting a healthy food system.  Pat Johnson, Vice President of Finance & Administration, David Joseph, Executive Director of Student Auxiliary Services, the real food challenge committee, members of the Lehigh Sustainability Council, the real food challenge student team, and staff from Lehigh Dining were all in attendance at the event. Katharine Targett, Lehigh’s Sustainability Program Manager, said, “This commitment not only helps Lehigh promote a healthy food system, but it also encourages environmental stewardship, respects human rights, and promotes campus engagement.  It’s a win, win, win”.  Katharine stated she is, “excited to see the strong partnership between the Office of Sustainability and Lehigh Dining continue to grow as we work toward the 20 percent real food by 2020 goal.”

Students also support and understand the importance of Lehigh signing this commitment.  Nick Fox ‘20 stated that, “he thinks it is important that Lehigh is committed to the real food effort because it is important for a leading academic institution, like Lehigh, to be committed to making environmentally friendly decisions and setting an example for other institutions across the country.”

Lauren Sleeger, Director of Rathbone, stated that “Lehigh Dining has been working diligently behind the scenes with not just Lehigh’s Office of Sustainability but with Sodexo leaders and vendors to truly create change within the food system. Only by working together can we reach our real food goal by 2020 and continue to be a national leader in this important movement towards a more sustainable food system.” Lauren also said that some of the places that the food is coming from are directly from the Lehigh Valley and its neighbors such as Fresh Tofu, Inc - Allentown, PA, Bear Mountain - Aspers, PA, Weaver’s Orchard - Morgantown, PA and Hershey Lancaster Beef, Mount Joy, PA. She said that, “ the real food lunch was an exciting milestone that we, the entire Lehigh University community should celebrate; but, it is merely the beginning and there is a lot more work to be done to ensure our goals are achieved.”

The Real Food Campus Commitment Lunch was a celebratory event to communicate to campus Lehigh's commitment to real food.  It is clear that the dedication and effort is in place to see the campus reach the 20 percent real food goal by 2020.