Now is the time to stop and smell the roses—as well as the apple blossoms, daffodils, and all the other flowers blooming on the Farm. On Friday, students practiced attuning to their senses and centering in the moment as part of a mindful kala practice led by Shruti Parthasarathy ’24, co-president of the Yale Student Mental Health Association. Participants took a break from the workday for a session that combined bharatanatyam, a form of Indian classical dance, with mindfulness meditation. They returned to the fields refreshed and ready to weed the peas, hops, and asparagus.
After the workday, students headed up to the Lazarus Pavilion for a knead 2 know by Kiera Quigley MEM ’23 and Destiny Treloar MESc ’23 about food insecurity amongst students at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE). Kiera and Destiny shared the campaign that began during their class “Organizing: People, Power, and Change.” After settling on the topic of food insecurity, the students disseminated a survey among YSE students that aimed to understand the scope of the problem and potential solutions. They found that one-third of YSE students experience food insecurity—compared to the national average of 10 percent. Rates of food insecurity are even higher among PhD students (compared to master’s students), first-generation students, low-income students, BIPOC students, and Latinx students.
Respondents identified a range of barriers to consistent food access. Cost was the most significant problem for food-insecure students, in addition to a lack of transportation. Kiera pointed out that many YSE students live in East Rock, a neighborhood which lacks a large, affordable grocery store. The majority of respondents, both food-insecure and not, also indicated that lack of time was also a problem: many students don’t have the spare hours to shop and cook for themselves.
Students suggested a range of possible solutions. The most commonly proposed initiatives were increased stipends and financial aid. Others advocated for better transportation and shuttle options to local grocery stories, a community food pantry or fridge, community organizing to bring more affordable food stores to the area, and efforts to transport leftover food from campus events to an accessible location.
Kiera, Destiny, and their classmates have shared these results widely. They organized a banner drop publicizing their findings in the YSE graduating class photo. They have also spoken with the Graduate and Professional Student Senate and with the YSE administration, and they plan to discuss their findings in a forthcoming publication.
We thank Kiera and Destiny for sharing their important work with us, and we thank all the students who joined us for their presentation and at last Friday’s workday. We hope to see you at our last pizza workday of the semester this Friday, with a workday at 2:00 PM and a knead 2 know at 4:15 PM by Diego Ellis Soto, a PhD candidate in the department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, about his work turning the Yale Farm birdsongs into music. Photos from the workday by Reese Neal ’25 are available here.