The Patton College of Education’s RHT Program to host sustainable events for Thanksgiving

Fostered and emancipated students, as well as Ohio Reach students, are invited and recognized at the Home Away From Home Lunch at McCracken Demo Kitchen.

The Restaurant, Hotel and Tourism program within the Human and Consumer Sciences Department in The Patton College of Education will host three Thanksgiving-related events over the next week.

Two of the events are part of The Sustainable Food Series, a series of events to promote a healthy and waste-free lifestyle. “Making Healthy Thanksgiving Alternatives” will take place Wednesday, Nov. 14, in McCracken Hall’s Demonstration Kitchen from 4-6 p.m. The Ecohouse Thanksgiving Dinner will be Thursday, Nov. 15, from 6-8 p.m. at the Ohio University Ecohouse on Dairy Lane.

At “Making Healthy Thanksgiving Alternatives,” which is open to the public, attendees will learn how to swap ingredients and use easy cooking methods to improve the nutritional value of popular thanksgiving foods.

The Ecohouse Thanksgiving Dinner will be catered by the students in the Restaurant, Hotel and Tourism Program. All the food for this event will be plant-based and locally sourced when possible. Guest speakers will lead conversations about sustainability and holiday foods. To get an invitation for this event, call the Office of Sustainability at 740-593-0460.

“I wanted to create an events series that reached a wide student audience, while also speaking to the three pillars of sustainability: people, planet, and prosperity,” said Vicky Kent, a Recreation Studies graduate student who is also a coordinator for the Office of Sustainability, a partner in these two events.

Kent organized the Sustainable Food Series with the intent to start conversations about food. The goal is for attendees to gain knowledge about local food organizations and the environment, while enjoying Thanksgiving.

The third event, organized and prepared by the Restaurant, Hotel and Tourism students, is the “Home Away From Home Lunch,” which will take place on Nov. 19 from 11:20 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. in McCracken Hall’s Demonstration Kitchen.

While the Home Away From Home Lunch is free and open to the public, fostered and emancipated students, as well as Ohio Reach students, will be recognized at the event. It is also sponsored by the Office for Multicultural Student Access and Retention (OMSAR) and the Athens Court Appointed Special Advocates/Guardian Ad Litem (CASA/GAL) program. The cuisine will be Afrikan and African food.

“Our desire is to use programming in the area of foodways to break down barriers and increase our cultural competency," said Thom Stevenson, Visiting Assistant Professor in Restaurant, Hotel and Tourism. "Sharing food together increases dialogue and knowledge of those who live in the communities we reside in. The more we know about each other, both far and wide, the more we realize we are more similar than dissimilar."