Week 9

This week we worked on the step-by-step project plan, which initially was created for just Millersville students to take on in the future if we didn't have the resources to do it. After discussing with my teammates, we decided to make it into a plan for other schools to do as well. We also made it a bit interactive, so that the people using it can write on the lines given, and can see our examples below each step.

Campus-oriented:

Oriented for Any School.

We also met up with Gerry Shehan, and discussed further about potential donations we could make, and he then referred us to the director of the Campus Grill on campus, who might have food that we could donate to the Campus Cupboard. We were not expecting it to be so difficult to donate wasted food after seeing all of the food being thrown out at Kym's workplace, which couldn't be donated because of contamination reasons. Her manager suggested the leftover cereal cups that the Anchor tries to get rid of, which has a longer shelf life and a bigger chance of being donated, versus the salads and sandwiches which only last for about a day.

Week 10

During class today we worked on trying to tie up some loose end regarding things we have left to finish with our project. Juan started working on the power-point for our presentation, and was able to finish it by the end of class. We need to meet up in order to go through it and create some notes as to what we would like to talk about during our presentation. We also worked on figuring out how we want to put the book together.

Adding on to Week 9

Trey and Myself (Nicole) met in the lab on Friday to continue to work on the project. We went over the tool kit to make sure we didn't miss any information within our case study. I also worked on creating the logo, and a slogan for our Chinese take out box. We thought of using a take out box as another deliverable. I created stickers to go the box so it would be easily identified that it was going to be taken the the Campus Cupboard.

Over the weekend I finished the flyer that Kym had started on, and we are going to get that laminated to become another deliverable. We created a flyer so that if others wanted to continue on with the project where we left off they would be able to do so.

Week 8

This week was a shortened week due to fall break, and therefore we only met on Thursday, which was spent visiting the Lancaster County Community Organization. We spoke with one of the employees, who introduced us to the organization, who they are, and what they do, since none of us have heard of them, despite all that they have done for the community. She even told our group that we are off to a great start with our project, and after we told her our concerns about the things we didn't consider with the lack of food and methods of transporting the food, she answered back by saying that even if we can't get this to work, we can learn from our mistakes and use our project plan for other students to use when the timing is right.

Week 7

This week, we worked on our case study, which would be put into a book as one of the deliverables at the end of this project. We used the emails received from Gerry Shehan, the Associate director of Dining Services, as well as those from the few community organizations that we contacted (Meals on Wheels, Campus Cupboard, Water Street Mission). We also formed our official Vision Statement, which is to "Promote less food wasted and more full stomachs in the community." We discussed some things that we didn't consider going into the project, and realized that we didn't consider the long term plan, and how food would be picked up from the dining hall and taken to the chosen organization (Campus Cupboard). We also found out that we are rather limited in terms of food that we could donate, simply because of the strict contamination guidelines that Dining Services must follow in order to ensure a safe, healthy, enjoyable dining experience for Millersville students and visitors.

Since we established the things we didn't consider, we also agreed that it would be a good idea to put together a step-by-step project plan for future Millersville students to use in case if we were unable to carry through completely with the project.

Be part of a greater whole

We haven't created a website for our work however, we have our case study to show the steps we took through out the project. This will be created into a book which will be viewed by anyone and as a pdf so it can be viewed digitally.

Always put the user first

We are working with the user in the aspect of sharing emails. We have not yet been able to meet with anyone from Campus Cupboard, because the places the food is going to be donated from continues to change. We have been sharing ideas back and forth with them in order to get their feedback, and what they are allowed to take as donations, and what they aren't able to accept. In the last email that was sent out, Gerry's name was included as well for them to have another reference contact.

Building long term relationships

We have already created a relationship with Associate Director of Food Services Gerry, and once we are able to move forward with our initial idea we will have a better relationship with Campus Cupboard as well.

Things we didn't consider

• Long term plan of how the food would get from one location to the other
• Limited on the food we are able to donate
• How often our initial plan would change

Peers Criticism

Based on the feedback from our classmates we did not receive any bad criticism from our critiques but we did receive ideas on ways we could improve on our plan. For example they asked how were we going to get the food from the dining hall to the food bank and said maybe if we discuss this problem with campus cupboard, maybe they would pick up the food. Also, we received feedback saying they were just wondering how were we going to go through with our idea and see if it really falls through with donating food.

Object vs Tool

Moving forward with the project the whole concept was to help fix a problem in the community and create a solution. So working together with the associate director of dining services we are trying to present a solution for the problem of who was going to continue bringing the food from the dining hall to the campus cupboard after we complete are project for our course. After emailing the concern with the campus cupboard they responded and said they would willing to pick up food from the dining hall which presented a huge benefit for the project.

Thinking Outside of the design bubble

Introducing Project

           Presenting our idea to our fellow classmates regarding how much food gets wasted at the upper deck(campus dining hall). The purpose of our project is to reduce the amount of food that gets thrown away and donate it towards a local food bank. Doing research on local food banks, we emailed and received a response back from The Campus Cupboard that they will love to work with us moving forward.

Getting started

Working productively to maximize positive impact

• We are trying to solve the solution of how to keep more food and throw away less, to feed people that may not be able to buy themselves a meal.

Working deductively to minimize negative impact

• The worst case scenario if we were to design a mediocre solution would be that a lot of food would get wasted.

Weekend Emails

Over the weekend I (Nicole) emailed Campus Cupboard, WaterStreet Ministries, and Gerry which is who we met with first regarding left-over refrigerated food at the Anchor.

Below are all of the Emails I sent out with responses.


Good morning Gerry,

My name is Nicole Schoenen and we spoke on Tuesday regarding giving away left-over food at the Anchor. I just wanted to touch base with you to let you know where my group and myself are at. Yesterday I sent an email out to Waterstreet and Campus Cupboard, as well as Facebook messaged Meals on Wheels. One of my group member's will also be contacting Meals on Wheels via phone later today. I got a response from Campus cupboard as well as Waterstreet which I will copy for you to read below this email. They both seem interested in working with us. On Thursday my group and myself were discussing the project and things that we didn't take into consideration when we first thought of this idea. We didn't think of a long term goal more so a short term goal, and now after talking we are nervous about how we are going to get the food from point A to point B I didn't know if there were any suggestions that you have to offer regarding this matter.

We spoke to our Professor about the possible failures of our project, and she suggested possibly creating more of a plan that would work for someone that might want to volunteer to deliver food. However, the plan for right now is to figure out what community organizations would be interested in taking the left-over food from the Anchor, and then we will worry about the second part of how to get it to them.



This is the email that I sent out to all three organizations.

My name is Nicole Schoenen and I am a senior at Millersville University. I am working in a group with three other students from Millersville University for my Design for Social Equity class. We were interested in possibly working with you for a food donation from the Anchor (one of the dining halls on campus). For our project we needed to find something that everyone in my group was passionate about, and we are all passionate towards trying to get rid of the waste of food and put it to good use. Our mission is to look at the waste of refrigerated food at the Anchor and see how we are able to give the left overs to community organizations.

We met with the Assistant Director of Dining Services regarding how we can move forward with our mission. He advised us to look into your organization, and also explained to us the policies regarding keeping food and throwing it away. We know that your organization is Monday thru Friday 10-2 and the first Saturday of each month. According to the Assistant Director of Dining Services the food is only allowed to be kept for 24 hours, and then must be thrown away. So we would be giving you foods that can be kept for a 24 hour period of time to give away. We are hoping that something like this will be able to benefit you as well as benefit Millersville University.

Please get back to me if this is something you may be interested in.

Thank you for your time,
Nicole Schoenen
nmschoen@millersville.edu

This is the email I received from Campus Cupboard

Nicole,

We’d be interested.  We are open 3 days a week - Tuesday / Thursday / Friday.  

If we received Anchor food Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, we could offer it to students when we are open and dispose of food that is not taken on those days.

Let me know how to move forward.

Ed Weber

Manager, Campus Cupboard

717-471-7310

-- 

Ed Weber

This is the email I received from WaterStreet

Hello Nicole my name is Clark and I am the Chef here at WSM. We would be glad to take your donations of leftover foods.   We are open from 6 to 6 Monday thru Saturday.  All you need to do is come here to water street mission turn into the first parking lot and go towards the back of the building, you will see two garage door.  There is a door bell next to one, just ring it and someone will be there to help you.  If you want to volunteer you need to go to wsm.org and go to the volunteer section and sign up.  We are looking forward to working with you on these donations. 

                                         Thank you,

                                                            Chef Clark Hiatt

Gerry, if you have any suggestions, and or different ways you think we should approach the project please let me know!
Thank you for your time,

Nicole Schoenen
nmschoen@millersville

Week 6

Today in class we further defined our mission statement and Nicole e-mailed and Facebook messaged Water Street Ministries, Campus Cupboard, and Millersville Meals on Wheels to see if we could collaborate with any of them to donate food from the Anchor. Below is our tentative project timeline, which should hopefully take about four weeks.

Project Timeline

Week 1:

·      Contacted Dining Services to see what we could donate from the dining halls.

·      Researching community organizations to donate the food to.

Week 2

·      Met with Gerry Shehan, Associate Director of Dining Services and discussed what we could donate from the Upper Deck, but discovered that the Anchor would be a better place to donate food from.

·      Contacting community organizations.

·      Discussing particular foods that could be donated.

Week 3

·      Start on our case study.

·      Hopefully hear back from Meals on Wheels in Millersville and Water Street Ministries.

·      Re-meet with Gerry or e-mail him to figure out the next steps that we should pursue.

Week 4

Fall Break
Field trip to Lancaster Community Foundation

Week 5
- meet up with Gerry to discuss the plan for donating food
- Discuss food donation process with Campus Cupboard

Week 6 
- Finish up case study
- tie up loose ends with donation plan

**Things that we didn’t consider was how the food would be transported to the corresponding food organization