Hi!My name is Julie and I currently work as the Food Security Coordinator for Next Course: Food Recovery Network at Drake. I am a double major in Sustainability & Resilience and Rhetoric, Media, & Social Change with a minor in Sociology and am both passionate about Next Course and see it as an intersection of my two major areas of study.
I have been in this position for a little over a year, but have learned so much about the complexity of food security that my perspective has been forever changed. To start, classes like Michael Haedicke’s Food and Society and programs such as Double Up Food Bucks working out of the local nonprofit Eat Greater Des Moines led me to consider the accuracy of my position title. Food security, the ability to to access affordable, nutritious, and culturally comfortable food as needed, is threatened for many people, even in our local area. I recognize that the work of food recovery- allocating excess food from Drake’s campus to nearby organizations that assist people facing hunger- supplements the charitable efforts of local organizations, but does not provide the sustenance required to move an individual to complete food security. With this understanding, I came to identify as a “Food Recovery Coordinator” more than a “Food Security Coordinator.”
