CHICKENS!

The Feast garden received a new addition today--baby chickens for their newly built coop! Feast club president, Giovanni Saarman told me in an interview that the new addition of chickens is the first step in what he hopes will be a slow but steady progression in impact and scope of the garden. Saarman provided examples of Oxy's peer schools, like Pitzer College, at which student-run gardens play a more integral role in campus life. Saarman expressed his hopes that FEAST would, in future months and years, take on a similar level of importance in the Oxy community.

One of the needs that many student leaders running FEAST have mentioned in interviews is greater administration support of the garden. Leaders have made clear that administrators support the garden in theory but, for a variety of reasons, the club has been unable to work closely with different offices in order to foster more connectivity between the garden and student services.

While the chickens will be egg-laying in 6 months, club leaders have expressed an interest in working with administrators to bring greater integration of the garden in student life. As it currently stands, the food grown in the garden is consumed and utilized (in the case of compost) by the students who grow it, but the garden has much greater potential than this. If health regulations do not allow for the food grown at the garden to be sold by campus dining outlets then, as is done at Pitzer, the garden can and should be used as part of a larger overall demonstrated commitment to sustainability. Pitzer uses their garden, in conjunction with several other green initiatives, to brand itself as a leader in undergraduate institutional sustainability. Perhaps, in conjunction with the other projects that UEP 247 is currently working on (solar panels, bike sharing, re-usable water bottles, zipcars, etc.) Oxy can take a similar step as its peer institution, and lead the way toward a greener future.