This week, I’ve continued to develop a plan to compost at the House, a plan for a vegetable garden, and furthered our partnership with OSU’s College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences.

I’ve connected the House with a Central Ohio composting company, Innovative Organics, to conduct a food waste audit in the coming weeks. Gathering data from how much food waste we collect will help us know what our composting needs are, forecast how much waste we could be diverting from landfills (which is an important statistic for grants) and provide data we can share with the House to encourage folks to be more conscious of food waste.

Additionally, I’ve begun to set up basic planning sessions to create a vegetable garden at RMHC. This week, I’ve been meeting with leadership in each department of the House (family services, volunteer services, marketing, development, facilities, and kitchen) to brainstorm what they’d like to see in the garden, and how their departments would like to be involved. The beauty of this project is that there’s room for it to be relevant to every part of the House. Community partners from OSU Franklin Extension, The Franklin Park Conservatory, and Columbus Public Health have also generously provided their technical expertise.

Lastly, this week also marked the most enjoyable, surprising, and emotional fundraising event I’ve attended this summer: The Inaugural Dean’s Charity Steer Show at The Ohio State Fair. This event started when TelOhio’s CEO and OSU’s CFAES Dean Cathann Kress decided they wanted to put on an event to raise money for the House. In this show, 4-H families from across Ohio paired up with local celebrities, teaching the celebrities how to show a steer, and about the work they do as cattle farmers. In the time leading up to the show, each of the celebrities led fundraising campaigns, drumming up support for themselves and their steer. Then, at the fair, a 4-H youth and the celebrity would show the steer together, complete with judging from the president of the Ohio Cattlemen’s Association. Following awards, a mock auction (led by professional farm auctioneers), in which all the money raised was to be donated to the house.

The show was one of the most well executed fundraising events I’ve ever attended: it brought together a few disparate community urban and suburban residents, many of whom had never attended a steer show, farmers from across Ohio, Ohio agriculture organizations, and OSU students. According to fair officials, it was also one of the most well attended steer shows they’ve hosted. Lastly, the show raised a substantial amount of money for the house: just over $134,000.

What struck me most walking away from this event is that there is a large, generous community of agricultural workers in this state, coming from the counties which RMHC serves, that may not know a lot about the House. The Team Cuisine program at RMHC is less than 2 years old, and there’s still plenty of room for it to be shaped by the state’s agricultural community.

This Friday, we are receiving a whole cow from CFAES, donated and processed by under the supervision of Lyda Garcia, Assistant Professor of Meat Science. Along with Dean Kress, Lyda has been a tremendous leader in rallying OSU’s CFAES to support the House. I’m inspired by Lyda’s passion for education and philanthropy, and excited to show her and her students the House.