Thanks to student efforts, Baton Rouge residents will soon have access to over 25,000 pounds of sweet potatoes.
Kitchens on the Geaux, a student organization on campus, hosted its fourth-annual Potato Drop on the LSU Parade Ground on Tuesday. The sweet potatoes were donated by Garber Farms in Iota, Louisiana, after they were deemed too “cosmetically imperfect” to sell at supermarkets.
Lily LaGrange, an economics freshman and president of the organization, said the event was a great way to raise awareness of food insecurity in Baton Rouge.
“The main purpose of it is to show that hunger insecurity doesn’t really discriminate,” LaGrange said. “We’re just trying to bring that to light and show that this is happening in our backyard.”
With help from the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, the St. Andrew Society and student volunteers, Kitchens on the Geaux assembled around 2,500 bags of sweet potatoes to be distributed around the city.
The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank collects around 9 million pounds of food each year. Virginia Archer, the food bank’s food acquisition coordinator, said the Potato Drop is a large factor in collecting such a large amount of food.
The food bank will distribute the sweet potatoes to various Baton Rouge organizations, including St. Vincent de Paul, Boys Hope Girls Hope and the Bishop Ott Shelter. Archer said by collecting the potatoes, Baton Rouge residents will not only eat, but will eat healthily.
“[The food bank] isn’t just about providing calories — it’s about nutrition too,” Archer said.
Food insecurity among University students has also become an issue that the food bank takes interest in. Archer said the Potato Drop raises awareness of resources for students like the food pantry started by the dean of students in 2013.
Biological sciences sophomore Muhammad Yahya was one of the more than 75 volunteers at the Potato Drop. He said he believed the event was a great way to make students conscious of food insecurity.
“It’s good for the LSU community to raise awareness of this issue,” he said.
Although Kitchens on the Geaux has been on campus for the past five years, the organization has all new leadership and recently rewrote its bylaws. LaGrange hopes the development of the club will help make it a prominent student organization.
The club has begun exploring options regarding food waste at the University and is looking into pairing with the food bank once again to possibly collect excess food from the campus dining halls in the future.
“Forty percent of food in this country goes to waste, so we’re trying to shed some light on that, as well,” LaGrange said.

Gallery • 19 Photos

Anjana Nair

LSU business sophomore, Grant Miller, bags sweet potatoes at the university's Kitchens on the Geaux 25,000 pound sweet potato drop where volunteers bag sweet potatoes and donate them to the Baton Rouge Food Bank on April 19, 2016 on the Parade Grounds.