- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

BBQ @ Bailey Canceled for Fall 2020; Trojan Food Pantry and Campus Garden to Benefit

John Hill — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 21:44:08 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will not hold its annual campus-wide picnic BBQ @ Bailey this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While students, employees, and alumni won’t celebrate this beloved tradition that kicks off the new semester together this year, the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Association has decided to celebrate by donating the money designated for the event to campus organizations that provide food to those in need. “BBQ at Bailey has become an awesome event that we look forward to each year! However, during this Covid-19 pandemic, ensuring the safety of our alumni, students, faculty, and staff is of the utmost importance,” said James Bobo, president of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Board. “Therefore, the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Board of Directors decided that in lieu of our 2020 BBQ @ Bailey event, we will donate the dollars ordinarily spent on the event to the Trojan Food Pantry and the Campus Garden.” The picnic-style event is usually held at the Bailey Alumni and Friends Center on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus and is hosted by the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Association. It’s a fun way for the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock community to enjoy some great barbecue, fun, and fellowship as well as an opportunity to join or renew their Alumni Association membership. “This would have been the 14th annual event, and we are disappointed that we are unable to provide an in-person way for our community to celebrate the beginning of another academic year,” said Kristi Smith, senior director of development and interim director of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Association. The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Trojan Food Pantry is open to all ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students, faculty, and staff. A recent survey found that 50 percent of the university’s students and staff either know someone who is food insecure or suffer from food insecurity themselves. “The Trojan Food Pantry has made a great impact on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock community,” said Corrigan Revels, assistant director for student leadership and development and coordinator of the Trojan Food Pantry. “This year, the pantry is more important than ever, and we are truly thankful to have the support of the Alumni Association. This support allows us to continue serving and supporting our Trojan family.”

Visitors harvest produce from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Ben Krain.

The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden is a place for education, research, and outreach about food production, sustainability, economic botany, ecology, and more. Much of its food harvested from the Campus Garden is donated to the Trojan Food Pantry. “The Campus Garden has been a vital part of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and the surrounding community for many years,” said Dr. Stephen Grace, faculty advisor of the Campus Garden and associate professor of biology. “With the economic and social hardship brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, our mission to provide fresh local produce and educational opportunities for people wanting to grow their own food is more important than ever. This generous donation from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Board of Directors will enable us to continue our efforts to build a vibrant, sustainable food system to serve the needs of our campus, city, and the people of central Arkansas.”

You can also be a part of this year’s celebration by donating to support the university’s students and employees who face food insecurity by visiting the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Giving website.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock, Heifer International launch partnership to promote sustainable agriculture, gardening practices

John Hill — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 16:33:31 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Heifer International have partnered to build awareness around regenerative agriculture and sustainable gardening practices in central Arkansas.�� “We are coming together to share our expertise in education and urban farming to create an exciting new collaboration,” ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Chancellor Christina Drale said. “Nurturing growth and transformation is what we do at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. In the Campus Garden, with Heifer’s assistance, we’re not just growing food; we’re also growing the abilities of our students to create transformational change for themselves and their community. Our students are prepared to be innovators and responsible leaders in their fields, contributing to the cultural and economic growth of our state. That is the true beauty of partnerships like these. We all grow together.” The partnership, announced Feb. 26 at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Bailey Alumni Center, will provide Heifer and ��Vlog��ý Little Rock the opportunity to work together to educate students and members of the public on increasing accessibility to local, nutritious food. The partnership is one way Heifer is contributing to its mission to end hunger and poverty.�� “We currently work with small scale farmers in 21 countries around the world, including right here in Arkansas,” said Bob Bloom, chief financial officer of Heifer International. “With the Campus Garden here at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and with our Urban Farm and Heifer Ranch, we saw this partnership as a natural fit and extension of what we’re doing in our home state. The campus here at the university represents a wonderful opportunity for a partnership that shares best practices, shares resources, and conducts joint workshops.”�� The two institutions will collaborate through field days and public workshops as well as sharing resources like equipment and volunteers. Students from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Campus Garden will learn about best practices used on Heifer’s Urban Farm, which contains a community garden, farm animals, and a solar-powered aquaponic facility, and the Heifer Ranch, a 1,200-acre agricultural training facility located in Perryville. “One of our goals at Heifer’s Urban Farm is to educate visitors about sustainable, eco-friendly farm practices,” said Tom Spinnato, senior director of facilities management and global operations. “It’s exciting that we’ll get to share what we know with visitors from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and also to be part of the growing network of folks in central Arkansas who are passionate about this work. I expect we’ll learn a lot from this experience that will enrich not only what we do here at the farm, but also the passion for local food in our community.” Members of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden Alliance, a student organization created in 2016, are looking forward to the innovative advances they hope to make at the garden through knowledge sharing with experts at Heifer International. “I think this will be an amazing opportunity,” said Lily Shaw, president of the Campus Garden Alliance. “We’ll have the opportunity to learn from Heifer’s experts. We can branch out into hydroponics and learn more about raising farm animals. In the future, I’m hoping we can access a commercial kitchen and learn how to produce commercial products that will support the Campus Garden.” The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden began in 2012 to teach students about sustainable urban gardening and to provide healthy, local, and inexpensive food to the community. The garden donates food to the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Trojan Food Pantry to fight food insecurity and hosts community farm stand events. “It’s not just about the plants we grow. It’s about the people that participate in the garden,” said Michael DeAngelis, co-director of the Campus Garden and professor of Earth Sciences. “We provide equitable access to affordable, healthy food. We have community farm stand events where people pay whatever they can through a donation, and sometimes that is nothing. We’ve had people come to the event who told us that they didn’t get a paycheck this week, and they didn’t know how they were going to get through the week without food from the garden.” In the future, DeAngelis hopes the garden will make an even larger impact on the local community with help from Heifer. They would like to expand the garden to provide more food to the Trojan Food Pantry and other community organizations that fight hunger, like the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. They also want to build an outdoor classroom space that will support year-round teaching, research, and community outreach activities. In the upper right photo, Heifer International CFO Bill Bloom, left, exchanges spinach grown in Heifer’s Urban Farm with ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Chancellor Christina Drale, right, for honey made by bees in the university’s Campus Garden after signing a partnership launching a pilot project to build awareness around regenerative agriculture and sustainable gardening practices. Photo by Ben Krain.

Farmstand event promotes green living on campus

Ajani Oyindamola — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 17:24:05 +0000

Jennifer Heinley, an accounting major at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, was out shopping at the Campus Garden with her two sons on during the garden’s first farmstand event in mid-July. The family was looking for honey, squash, zucchinis, and any other fresh ingredients that might go well with the Instant Pot recipe she was planning to make for dinner. Heinley said it’s important to buy fresh, organic food and often shops at farmers markets for everything she doesn’t grow in her own garden.�� “I prefer buying locally sourced food if I can’t grow it myself,” she said, adding that her children enjoy the food, even if they don’t always enjoy the work. “I like the food, but I don’t like the weeding,” Blake Heinley, 7, agreed. In the farmstand model, people make donations as they can and then pick whatever they want from the garden. At the garden, which is organic and pesticide-free, students and volunteers grow corn, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, Turkish melons, and herbs, as well as host perennial and annual flower beds, beehives, and rented stalls. “The donations all go straight back into the garden and helping the community,” Marion Richard, senior biology major and president of the Campus Garden Alliance, said. “I want people to know about the importance of community. We would not have this beautiful garden without all of the people who help us. This garden is a labor of love.”

Visitors harvest produce from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden during a pay-what-you-can farmstand sale. Photo by Ben Krain.

Toni Boyer-Stewart, web marketer and analyst, took the opportunity to buy some locally grown honey, corn, and pick some fresh flowers straight from the campus garden.�� “Nobody knows about the Campus Garden, and people need to realize that we have a wonderful resource for fresh vegetables and locally grown honey right on campus,” Boyer-Stewart said.�� More than 100 people attended the two-hour event, where the garden staffers sold out of tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and sweet corn. “We love fresh produce,” said Kisa Bellamy, a nursing major from Little Rock, who was picking collard greens at the campus garden. “For me, it brings it home from what we see in the grocery store to how we actually get the vegetables in our home. I didn’t even know how to pick collards from the ground, so it’s cool that they showed me how.” Leaders of the Campus Garden are planning to hold farmstand events throughout the rest of the growing season as the crops continue to mature. “Maintaining the garden takes a lot of work, and it’s all done by faculty, student, and staff volunteers,” said Dr. Stephen Grace, biology professor and faculty advisor of the Campus Garden Alliance. “The Campus Garden is a model urban farm that can promote better health and nutrition for the community by providing locally grown, fresh produce, contribute to the revitalization of underutilized urban land, provide social and economic benefits to the urban community, and improve urban landscapes.” The next farmstand event will take place from 2:30-5:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2.��

Sustainability grant will lead to new greenhouse for Campus Garden, more fresh food for Trojan Food Pantry

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 22 May 2018 13:56:51 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Sustainability Committee has awarded a $2,500 grant that will provide more growing opportunities for the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden as well as an increase in fresh produce for the Trojan Food Pantry.�� Dr. Stephen Grace, associate professor of biology, and Dr. Michael DeAngelis, associate professor of Earth Sciences, serve as faculty advisors of the Campus Garden Alliance, which began a partnership in 2016 to provide fresh produce for the Trojan Food Pantry. The Trojan Food Pantry typically relies on donations of nonperishable food, but staff members are eager to provide healthier options for people who use the food pantry. The Campus Garden Alliance provides the food pantry with produce such as beets, cauliflower, cabbage, greens, tomatoes, peas, peppers, herbs, squash, and onions. “We intend to install a hoop-style, cold frame greenhouse at the Campus Garden to expand growing capacity and enable year-round vegetable production,” Grace said. “We feel that a greenhouse will greatly enhance the mission and goals of the Campus Garden by providing much needed infrastructure. It will also be used to leverage further improvements at the Campus Garden with the long-term goal of becoming an economically viable center for urban agriculture.” The Sustainability Committee also awarded two additional $2,500 grants to Dr. John Czarnecki, adjunct professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, and Dr. Ashokkumar Sharma, assistant professor of mechanical engineering technology. Czarnecki will develop trash barriers for the city’s storm drains in order to reduce the amount of trash that winds up in Fourche Creek. “Much of the floatable trash entering curbside storm drains in Little Rock ultimately ends up in Fourche Creek, home to 25 percent of all fish species in Arkansas,” Czarnecki said. “The city of Little Rock includes 1,800 acres of bottomland hardwood forests within the Fourche Creek bottoms area. Unfortunately, this area receives regular inputs of floatable trash during flood events. This trash negatively impacts sustainable water quality, ecosystems, and recreation in Fourche Creek bottoms.” The storm drains have uncovered openings ranging from 5-12 inches in height and 6-12 feet in length, which can allow trash up to the size of a basketball to enter. Commercially made storm drain trash barriers are available, but Czarnecki notes that these cost roughly $1,000 each, making them an impractical option for Little Rock. With the help of construction management and Earth Sciences students, Czarnecki will design, build, and implement cost-effective barriers using readily available materials. Once he receives permission from the City of Little Rock’s Department of Public Works, Czarnecki and his students will test the barriers on storm drains on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus and monitor their progress. “I greatly enjoy building things and finding solutions that impact society,” Czarnecki said. “Fourche Creek is a spectacularly beautiful natural resource right in the city limits of Little Rock that deserves respect and protection. This project will help attain that goal.” Sharma will use his grant, “Sustainable Production of Renewable Fuels,” to fund a research-based project to develop a novel thermochemical process to convert the university’s dry solid waste (papers, cardboard, and plastics) to produce a renewable fuel that can be utilized for generation of power and heat energy. “This research will provide an improved alternative to utilize wastes of public institutions, strengthening the energy independence and economy of the nation,” Sharma said. “This project will demonstrate how it is possible to utilize waste instead of recycling to generate energy.” He also plans to develop a course for engineering and engineering technology students with an emphasis on sustainability in energy conservation and efficiency. The grant money will be used to construct the reactor system, purchase materials, and fund student travel to present the research at a scientific conference. In the upper right photo,��Dr. Stephen Grace works in the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/��Vlog��ý Little Rock Communications.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden subject of first EARTHtalk lecture

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 19:09:24 +0000

During the first EARTHtalk lecture of the year, Dr. Stephen Grace, associate professor of biology, will discuss the progress of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Campus Garden and the benefits of sustainable urban gardening.�� Grace’s talk, “Building a Healthy Future through the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden,” will take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 30, in the Engineering and Information Technology Building Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. Grace joined the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock faculty in 2000. He is a plant physiologist whose research is focused on the biochemistry and metabolism of plants, especially in relation to human nutrition. In 2013, Grace helped establish the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden to educate students, faculty, and staff about sustainable urban gardening and to help bring fresh food to the campus community. Since establishing the campus garden, Grace also helped start a student organization, the Campus Garden Alliance, which raises fresh produce for the Trojan Food Pantry. Grace serves as faculty adviser. For more information, contact Michael DeAngelis at 501.569.3542 or mtdeangelis@ualr.edu or visit the EARTHtalk! website. In the upper right photo,��Dr. Stephen Grace works in the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/��Vlog��ý Little Rock Communications.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock