This wasn’t your everyday food drive to collect canned goods.
Kitchens on the Geaux hosted its second annual Potato Drop on Tuesday morning to bag potatoes for local food banks and homeless shelters and to raise awareness about the hunger problem in the area.
Almost 75 volunteers spent four hours placing the vegetables into bags for the hungry.
Sarah Corie, sociology freshman and programs director for Kitchens on the Geaux, said the bags of potatoes will be distributed by the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank to the community and 11 other parishes.
Garber Farms in Iota donated more than 28,000 pounds of sweet potatoes to the event because they were deemed cosmetically imperfect either due to their size or appearance and were not suitable for sale in grocery stores.
“It’s so crazy that they don’t sell these potatoes for cosmetic reasons,” dietetics freshman Claire Gilbert said.
International studies freshman Catherine Roppolo said the Potato Drop was a unique way to help the community.
Corie said the Potato Drop reduces waste as well as serving the city. The unmarketable produce would be left to rot, but because Kitchens on the Geaux accepts them, the sweet potatoes will be consumed by those in need, said mechanical engineering senior and president of Kitchens on the Geaux Scott Burke.
“If you mash up an ugly potato and you mash up a pretty potato, they actually taste the same,” Burke said.
Burke became one of the initial founders of Kitchens on the Geaux after he witnessed the dining halls throwing away uneaten food his freshman year. He inquired if the uneaten food could serve a better purpose and was told it was policy to throw the food away. Burke approached Jacob Brumfield and Mary Wallace of Campus Life to find a solution to the food problem. Kitchens on the Geaux now collects leftover food from Lod Cook Alumni Center and various restaurants near campus to give to other sources.