Spread Ubuntu with Refugee and Immigrant Cooks

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In March 2017, Project Feast launched its training café, Ubuntu Street Café. Originating from South Africa’s Nguni Bantu language, ubuntu is the belief in the bond of sharing that connects all of humanity. Our café is a place of acceptance, education, and comfort. Each guest provides our apprentices real life experience to learn and cultivate their culinary and customer service skills. We create our international menu with the recipes from our apprentices’ home countries. In the café atrium, we intend to create a welcoming space that better represents Kent’s diversity. We are collaborating with Ukrainian artist, Olha Moisiuk, to paint a mural representing Kent's mission: "Bringing the World Home." We want to execute other café atrium improvements including polishing the floors (5 volunteers), assembling furniture (2 volunteers), painting (5 volunteers), and puttying the wall to prepare it for the community mural (5 volunteers).

The Project Feast team sees a notable connection between ubuntu and the civil rights movement. Before starting our MLK Jr. Day of Service project, we will: (1) share our mission and what ubuntu means to Project Feast so volunteers understand the larger impact of our café atrium improvements and (2) volunteers will join us for team lunch with a facilitated conversation about civil rights and ask volunteers to share when they feel ubuntu. Similar to ubuntu, the legacy of Dr. King is about the advancement of equality for all people. Ubuntu uses the power of sharing to connect humanity, it is about seeing past the labels and acknowledging one another as humans first. The Project Feast Team and alumni believe that: sharing food connects us in our shared humanity, food has the power to nourish more than just the body, and through sharing meals we can make the world a more loving place, bite by bite.