Joanna Fuerte: With 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Joanna Fuerte. According to Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino, over 530,000 people in the Inland Empire are food insecure. As a UC Riverside student, I have interviewed Vivian Gonzalez to understand how this issue is being addressed at UC Riverside.
Vivian Gonzalez: I am the basic needs coordinator at the Basic Needs department and help with the operations of the Scotty Eats program.
Joanna Fuerte: Thank you. So, why was Scotty Eats established and what is the overall main goal of Scotty Eats?
Vivian Gonzalez: The dining halls do have a lot of surplus food at the end of every day. And that's, you know, not to say that that's anybody's fault. Basic Needs department, we know that Highlanders here on campus, there's a high percentage of students being food insecure. So it kind of just went hand in hand. We wanted to make sure that we're getting food that is being uneaten, that is perfectly fine and also helps students that are facing food insecurity. So this was just something that came to my attention in 2022 and over the years, it's just become into what you now know as Scotty Eats. And also included was UCLA Bruin Dines Leadership. And that basically goes into the inspiration because literally the inspiration structure, everything came directly from the UCLA Bruin Dine program.
Joanna Fuerte: Could you elaborate on who helps run the program and how is food collected?
Vivian Gonzalez: We have five partners, and by partners I mean departments. So that's Basic Needs, that's Dining, that's GCAP, ASUCR, and the Office of Sustainability. And basically, each department is responsible for providing at least two members that can support the weekly event and each week a partner is, or a department, is assigned to lead and oversee that everything runs smoothly during the event. The food does come right now solely from Glasgow dining hall. And what happens is the team, there's a team of four that goes to Glasgow every Tuesday night using, you know, the proper vehicles and they take heating units with them. So they'll unload the heating units once they get there and that's where the trays go. And these trays are covered and prepared by dining staff. And then they're just given to us to put into the heating units. Our heating units can hold about 24 trays, and those are, you know, meant to maintain the heat of the food that is being given to us. So once those trays are loaded into the heating units, those are rolled back onto our vehicles, and then those are transported back to Bears Den. Obviously, we also do gloves. All the staff that are actually serving the food have to wear gloves, hair nets, of course, wash their hands before, during, after, depending if they switch gloves. And those who are not, you know, be mindful of taking the trays away, don't let the people that are serving food touch any other surfaces or anything.
Joanna Fuerte: How does this program measure its impact?
Vivian Gonzalez: We have a recovery data sheet in our shared Google Drive where the day after each event, I have one of my team members upload all of the numbers and what those numbers are is how many trays did we recover that night? How many pounds of food did we start with at the beginning? How many pounds at the end of the night if there was anything still left and then also the number of diners, students, aka students, that we served that night. So all four numbers can be found on our Google sheet per event, so it'll tell you the date. And then also we put like any other notes that are important for us to remember.
Joanna Fuerte: Does the program have any plans for expanding in the future?
Vivian Gonzalez: I hope so. I hope so. Originally, the goal from the get go was to recover from Glasgow and Lothian And when we got to the point of actually launching, it was just a little bit more outside of our capacity. So we decided to just do Glasgow for now. I think with just that one additional day or one additional dining location can make a big difference in how many students we’re feeding and how many pounds we’re recovering. But with each one, there's a lot of factors that need to be considered.
Joanna Fuerte: And what additional support is provided for students who cannot access Scotty Eats?
Vivian Gonzalez: So if they can’t attend that, I highly, highly recommend visiting the Basic Needs Department website to see what other food resources we have, which is a lot. We do have the meal support program, we have CalFresh, we have the pantry, and we're always, always, always trying to expand or add new initiatives.
Joanna Fuerte: Thank you very much Vivian. Scotty Eats is open to currently enrolled UCR students. From 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Joanna Fuerte.
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Joanna Fuerte, B.S. in Earth Sciences, joannadfuerte@gmail.com