By Rebecca Harrelson, Staff Writer

Published in print Jan 21, 2015.

As students we tend to take on more than our share of identities. We are daughters, brothers, family members, caretakers, lovers, employees, friends and the list goes on. Yet with all of our daily activities we have this really great ability, which you might be complete unaware of.

We have the ability to make our surrounding  community infinitely better; better than when we first arrived. We are one of many schools here in Greensboro and the surrounding areas.  We employ a huge amount of community members; we are building more and more facilities within this community. We walk the streets, party with, shop at and dine in this community.

I did some research into what UNCG does for its district and what I found is an interesting start to boosting our community’s economy and giving hope to businesses and community members.

I spoke with Kevin Deans with UNCG Dining who gave me a rundown of the food sources we use here at UNCG.

“Most of our Flex Partners are locally run businesses, Mimi Kitchen, Ghassans, and soon to come Burger Warfare and Fortune Cookie,” he said.

Within the EUC Food Court we have Thai Garden, Ghassans and Hissho Sushi. UNCG Dining is a member of NC 10, which basically means that at least 10 percent of the food UNCG purchases is produced or raised locally, meaning they buy local produce whenever possible.

Deans gave me a rundown of the purchases: the fresh chicken is from Shuler Meats in Thomasville and Prestige Farms from Charlotte. The pork is from Smithfield, turkey products are Butterball (Eastern Carolina) and the baked goods, milk and ice cream are all local. 

He also informed me of the UNCG Community Gardens project which has ten plots that are used to raise herbs, spices and vegetables, all of which UNCG dining uses.

“In the future these efforts will continue and expand as opportunities arise to involve more community operations,” Deans said. “We see Spartan Village II as a big opportunity to involve local merchants in the retail locations.”

There’s the Food Trucks that are sporadically placed around different areas of campus.  I spoke with the owner of Parlez-Vous Crepe, Jody Argote. “We started participating in Food Truck Tuesdays at UNCG during the Fall 2013,” she said.

What I found interesting was that they are normally based out of Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Raleigh/Durham area….which is great for their local economy but you’d think we would be able to find local businesses around here that would love the opportunity to sell to a college campus. 

I looked into other Food Trucks, Camel City Grill and Cameron’s Funnel Cakes. Camel City Grill is based out of Winston-Salem and Cameron’s Funnel Cakes is serving to all of the Triad, including Greensboro, High Point, Burlington and Winston Salem.

Having looked briefly into what UNCG is doing to better the community, I felt good, not great, not proud, but a solid “good.”

There is an innumerable amount of ways we as a university can be better serving our community, not Winston Salem, and certainly not Charlotte or the Raleigh/Durham area.

I am all for helping out our surrounding cities, but if you were to put Greensboro in an economic line-up of Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham, I have a feeling we would come in last.

Bottom line: we need proactive thinking in Greensboro.

We need students to get involved in the community, we need to make Greensboro a place to settle, not just a four or five year stop on the path of education. We need to completely remove the clothing in the UNCG Bookstore that is made in foreign sweat shops, and replace that clothing with UNCG student designed garments or USA made products.

And as much as it pains me to say this, take out the Starbucks and replace it with a local coffee shop!  (Hey, coffee is coffee, why not support the locals instead of the mass produced chains?)

We need professors to offer extra credit to students who volunteer to clean up parks and areas around town.

We live here, and maybe some students don’t venture out into Greensboro during their short stay here but can you imagine that if every Greek organization, Athletic department and every on-campus dorm or apartment had mandatory clean up days, mandatory volunteer days, how much better could this town be? Not to mention the personal growth and respect we would have towards higher education and perspective of those who aren’t as fortunate as us. 

We all have this really great ability to make a difference for more than just ourselves. So why should we box learning into just a campus when we have this entire community?