STUDENTS FROM SEVERAL PROGRAMS COLLABORATE ON TASTY PASTA GIVEAWAY PROJECT

The Arugula Pesto Pasta Giveaway on April 17, a unique collaboration between students in several academic programs, was a fun, healthy success that led to 60 students getting a free entrée.

The project sprouted from the Hawai‘i Student Success Institute after Agriculture Instructor Lew Nakamura, English Instructor Sharon Dansereau, Associate Professor of Art Meidor Hu, and Counselor Karen Crowell attended a workshop on seed sharing.

With much help from Culinary Arts faculty Brian Hirata and Karen Daniels, the group developed the pasta giveaway idea, which provided students with a unique learning experience.

• Lew Nakamura and the Agriculture students provided tomatoes, beans, kale, basil, and arugula.
• Karen Daniels and Brian Hirata created a recipe, and Culinary Arts students not only made the dish but also provided a pesto-making demonstration.
• Meidor Hu's Digital Media Arts class created the menu card design.
• One of Sharon Dansereau's English student’s wrote the email blast to promote the event.
• Karen Crowell, Randiann Tokeshi and Kate De Soto from the Division of Student Affairs also took part in coordinating this as part of a Health and Wellness collaboration.

Each student who participated was offered a menu card, a blue zone information sheet and a ticket to pick up their pasta dish. They had the option to just pick up lunch or pick up lunch and watch a pesto-making demo.

The group hopes to do an event similar to this each semester and will be pursuing the idea of developing a seed sharing program during the summer.