As food insecurity on campus grows, students are Cooking With Purpose

Classes teach Auraria students to create healthy meals with free ingredients available at Rowdy's Corner and other campus food pantries.

Lynne Winter

September 25, 2024

As food insecurity on campus grows, students are Cooking With Purpose — MSU Denver students Randall Martinez, left, Victoria Garcia Cornejo and Ezekeyiel Sailas make pizzas on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at the School of Hospitality. Photo by Amanda Schwengel

More than a dozen students and volunteers gathered around a prep station to watch a demonstration of what they’ll be making during the first Cooking With Purpose class of the semester: pizza.

“I wanted to start with a simple recipe to ease them in,” said Natalie Nowak, a registered dietitian at the Health Center at Auraria. She showed the group how to stretch the dough and safely slice onions before they dispersed to workstations stocked with vegetables, dough, cheese, seasonings and cans of tomato sauce.

Developed last fall in partnership between the Health Center at Auraria and Rowdy’s Corner, the food pantry at Metropolitan State University of Denver, the monthly classes teach basic cooking skills and techniques to as many as 18 students, using ingredients found in campus food pantries to prepare nutritious meals the students can easily replicate.

The program launched as an alarming number of MSU Denver students reported struggling with food insecurity. A University survey conducted last spring showed that almost 60% of MSU Denver students reported experiencing food insecurity and 70% reported not having a convenient way to prepare meals.

Meanwhile, food prices have risen by 25% between 2019 and 2023, and nearly three-quarters of a million Coloradans report experiencing food insecurity. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as having “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”

MSU Denver has been at the forefront meeting the challenge among college students, reinventing its approach to serving food-insecure students with the opening of Rowdy’s Corner in 2022.

MSU Denver Registered Dietician Natalie Nowak leads the Cooking with Purpose class — Natalie Nowak, registered dietician at the Health Center at Auraria, leads the Cooking with Purpose class held in partnership with Rowdy’s Corner. Photo by Amanda Schwengel

In the first month of the 2024-25 academic year, Rowdy’s Corner saw a 25% increase in use, said Margarita Driscoll, marketing and educational-services program administrator with the Health Center at Auraria.

“We are averaging almost 1,000 unique visits and 2,000 transactions each week,” Driscoll said.

Cooking With Purpose’s partnership with the food pantry is another step in the battle against rising food insecurity on the Auraria Campus and across Colorado. Nowak said the hands-on cooking experience helps busy students from MSU Denver, CU Denver and Community College of Denver build confidence in the kitchen and learn to meal-prep. Each of the schools operates a food pantry, where students have access to the ingredients they need to prepare the recipes they learn in the class.

“It’s difficult to be a student, have other responsibilities and cook for yourself,” Nowak said.

Seeing as those who are Black or Latino were twice as likely as white Coloradans to report food insecurity, cultural value is taken into consideration when selecting recipes. Driscoll said it is imperative that students see their culture in the meals they prepare — especially at MSU Denver, where more than 56% of undergraduates identify as students of color.

“Being a Latina and not seeing foods I grew up eating being branded as ‘healthy’ felt exclusive,” Driscoll said. “All cultures should be represented when we are having a conversation about what a healthy meal looks like, not just your basic chicken and broccoli.”

MSU Denver students Kiki Garcia and Dominic Spina roll out their pizza dough. Photo by Amanda Schwengel

Victoria Garcia Cornejo, a student employee at Rowdy’s Corner and Cooking With Purpose volunteer, can attest to the impact of having access to food resources. As someone who has struggled with food insecurity and used Rowdy’s Corner before working there, she appreciated being able to get free food without the judgment and stigma she experienced visiting food pantries with her family.

“There is a level of uncomfortability, where you’re ashamed of it,” said the junior majoring in Political Science. “That’s not present at all in Rowdy’s Corner.”

Help fight food insecurity at MSU Denver

Rowdy’s Corner accepts unexpired nonperishable food and drinks, in-kind gifts such as food-prep items and food-storage containers for Cooking With Purpose, grocery-store gift cards and cash donations year-round.

At Rowdy’s Corner, Garcia Cornejo started learning about how food and nutrition relate to health — something she admits not thinking about before — through site visits with partners such as local farms. Volunteering with Cooking With Purpose felt like the next logical step. “It’s another way to learn. You don’t usually think pizza would be a health thing, but here we are,” she said.

Driscoll wants to add a virtual component to the program, with recipe videos that allow students who cannot attend to participate. She said studies suggest that hands-on experiences with food translate into students taking action in their lives, adopting healthy habits and learning new skills.

“We want students to use Rowdy’s Corner and feel confident to prepare healthy meals that taste good,” she said. “The ultimate goal with these classes is for students to leave feeling empowered.”