When Sarah-Marie Hopf '12 discovered she had over $300 in her Declining Balance Account at the end of Spring term in 2010, she decided not to splurge the money by treating herself to overpriced steaks and Odwalla juices. Instead, she bought 150 pounds of fresh fruit, yogurt, vegetables, milk and orange juice from Dartmouth Dining Services to send to families in the Upper Valley.
Using the same idea a few months later, Hopf and Kate Burns '13 developed the Dartmouth Food Connection, an initiative that seeks to use students' extra dining money for food donations to low-income families in the local community.
Since last year, DFC has held food drives and a fundraising dinner to provide support for two local organizations, Willing Hands and the Upper Valley Haven.
In February, the project won the 2012 Milton Sims Kramer '54 Memorial Prize, an award given by the President's Office, which provides $3,000 in financial support for the initiative through next year.
Hopf and Burns started DFC in fall 2010 after noticing a trend of students having excess amounts of DBA at the end of every term, Burns said.
"All of my friends started buying more and more food and throwing it out," she said. "One day, my friend came to dinner with the Homeplate, Pavilion and Foco special and decided he didn't want any of them."
After both students independently approached the administration to express their concerns, administrators suggested Hopf and Burns work together on a proposal that would recommend how they wished to solve the problem, Hopf said.
Over the following months, the students worked extensively with the administration, the Tucker Foundation and DDS to create a plan to help put extra DBA to better use.
Last winter, Hopf and Burns conducted a campus-wide survey of DBA use, Hopf said. Out of 566 responses, they discovered that the average student had more than $250 in DBA leftover each term, Hopf said.
"Both of us were very unhappy with the waste of DBA," Hopf said. "I was tired of seeing people buy food that they didn't need and waste their DBA because they didn't want to forfeit it."
Last spring, after months of planning and gathering information, Hopf and Burns organized two major events a fundraising pasta dinner and an end-of-term food drive.
The dinner, in which students donated $20 each for a pasta meal, raised $5,510 for Willing Hands, an organization that delivers free food to low-income families in the Upper Valley region, according to Heather Bagley, the organization's executive director.
"This made a significant impact on our organization," Bagley said. "We've been using the money to purchase food when our food supply is low."
The food drive, which allowed students who had extra DBA to buy goods from DDS and then donate them, was also "very successful," Hopf said. Produce and other perishable items went to Willing Hands, while non-perishable goods were sent to the Haven, Hopf said.
"What we collected filled the Haven's entire storage room twice," she said. "Willing Hands also received tons and tons of food."
With Hopf off-campus in the fall, Burns said she continued the initiative herself through another end-of-term food drive at Courtyard Cafe. Despite concerns that the new SmartChoice dining plan would affect the results of the drive, Burns said that students continued to donate very generously.
"People had basically bought out all the food of the Hop," she said. "Students were donating so much that the Hop manager had to place in another order of food [from its supplier]."
Hopf and Burns applied for and won the Kramer Prize this winter while attending the anthropology Foreign Study Program in New Zealand, Hopf said.
"We wanted to have official recognition and get a good venue to share with the campus what we're doing," she said. "Having the Kramer Prize would legitimize our efforts."
The Kramer Prize, created in honor of Milton Kramer '54, provides funding for a student or group which engages in a service, research or programming project, according to the President's Office website. Kramer, who died the summer after his graduation from Dartmouth, was the editor of The Dartmouth, the valedictorian of his class, the chairman of Palaeopitus and the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship.
"We're looking for an initiative that will have an impact on a number of students across campus," Nariah Broadus, director of Outreach and Project Development at the President's Office, said. "We're looking for something with a broad appeal, for something that is likely to be sustained or maintained through other avenues on campus."
A panel of members in the Palaeopitus Senior Society evaluated the applications, according to Palaeopitus member and President's Intern Jason Goodman '12. The group chose DFC out of 14 applications because of the quality of the proposal, Goodman said.
"They had a very creative and dynamic plan," he said. "The project will efficiently help many people in and beyond the Dartmouth community."
With the Kramer Prize, Hopf and Burns plan on expanding the program by creating a website, electing an executive board and recruiting speakers to speak at the College about food security.
Through these efforts, they hope to make DFC a "sustainable" program that will continue after they graduate, Hopf said.
Tucker Program Officer Tracy Dustin-Eichler, who served as an advisor for DFC, said Hopf and Burns still need to work out several logistical issues before the program can fully develop.
"I think it's still in its early stages and its connection to Dartmouth Dining Services still needs to be worked out," Dustin-Eichler said.
Dustin-Eichler remains optimistic, however, about the program's future, especially with the new funds that are available.
"Sarah-Marie and Kate are incredibly intelligent and motivated women," she said. "I'm excited to see where the project goes."
