By Rebecca Gordon and Riley DeForest, University of Guelph
The beginning of fall is a busy time on campus. For our University of Guelph Slow Food Convivium, it’s when we recruit the majority of our members. There’s probably no better place to have a Slow Food Convivium than the University of Guelph because it is considered the “Food University” of Canada due to its strong programs in agricultural science, food science, nutrition and hospitality.
As a result we decided to make this year the first year that we looked for membership from students of every program in the University.
Because so many people are interested in sustainable food at our university we figured it would be easy to find members. However it turned out to be much more difficult than we thought because most people under the age of 25 have no idea what slow food is. We knew there was a problem when one person very seriously thought that it was a club where you exchange slow cooker recipes. At that point we realized we had to take a step back and re-evaluate things.
Our committee then set out to educate as many people as we could on what exactly slow food is and the importance of good, clean and fair food. We spoke in lectures, sent out mass emails and used social media to get our message out. And it worked!
We now have 50 members who are completely new to slow food and the majority of them are first year students. We know that our Slow Food membership will continue to grow in the next few years because once you learn what slow food stands for, you realize it can apply to each and every one of us.
Educating members on Slow Food one pie at a time