Two Fairhaven students will lead a new food preservation project as a collaboration between Western’s Outback Farm and the Native American Student Union, set to begin operations this quarter.
Students Marlee Maloy and Jessica Bee, alongside the project’s adviser Terri Kempton and NASU’s adviser Grey Webster, designed the Preservation Station to help get the food from the Outback Farm back to students, support indigenous methods of food preservation, and combat rising food insecurity on Western’s campus.
Maloy said that operations will begin once the project has access to their commercial kitchen. Then, the Outback Farm’s produce will be gathered and taken to the kitchen, where it will be preserved, dried, and then distributed to campus food pantries - specifically in Fairhaven and the Viking Union.
Campus food pantries are experiencing surges in student usage, reflecting the rising rates of student food insecurity and increased reliance on resources like the Basic Needs Hub or the WHOLE (Western Hub of Living Essentials) pantry.
“The Basic Needs Hub has been in existence since the fall of 2023, and each year I am seeing far more students than in the past,” said Western Basic Needs Resource Navigator Gina Ebbeling. “On average, last year we were seeing about 600 students going to the pantry to get food, and in the first week of classes this year, we had over 1,300 students visit.”
The Outback Farm contributes to the campus food pantries to help protect students from food insecurity. According to Kempton, the Outback Farm is a mutual aid model in which all plants and produce are grown in the community, and everything is distributed to food-insecure students for free.
When it comes to the farm harvest’s distributions, the summertime often sees a mismatch in how much produce is available and how many students are on campus to use it.
“One of the challenges of any university farm and garden is that the peak of agricultural activity is summer, and at most universities, summer is the quietest time in regard to students,” Kempton said. “The Preservation Station is two students who really took that challenge, thought about it, and came to me and said, ‘Would you be the advisor for this project?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
The Preservation Station’s origins also came from Maloy and Bee’s mutual passion for using local, in-season produce to its full potential.
“Being attuned to the seasons and what's available in the season - how do we capture that harvest and then be able to distribute it beyond its shelf life as just classic produce?” Maloy said. “Me and a fellow student named Jessica Bee, who is my collaborator in this, were just really psyched about that, and so we started writing the grant.”
During the grant-writing process, Kempton mentioned the Outback Farm’s partnership with NASU and NASU’s endeavor to construct a longhouse on campus, featuring a freeze dryer to preserve their traditional foods. This relationship established the collaboration as Webster modified and added to the Preservation Station project with indigenous methods of food harvesting and preservation.
Maloy felt that supporting NASU in using indigenous methods to preserve their traditional foods was a given. To her, it was important to develop the collaboration with NASU due to their already-existing relationship with the Outback Farm.
“Food preservation is something that belongs to everyone,” Maloy said. “...I wanted it to be more about more than just the Outback Farm. I wanted it to also include other lineages of food preservation and support that as well.”
The Preservation Station deepens the Outback Farm’s ties with campus food pantries and resources. The WHOLE pantry seeks to ensure students don’t navigate life and school hungry, nourished with locally grown and sourced food.
“I believe we're all worthy of really good food, and that includes organic and fresh and local,” Ebbeling said. “Anytime we can provide that kind of good food in the pantry, it is a huge priority. I'm excited to see what the Preservation Station creates and brings in.”
Webster was unavailable for comment.
Rosalie Johnson (she/her) is a campus life reporter for The Front this quarter. She is a second year journalism major on the news/editorial track and aims to finish a minor through Western’s Honors College. Outside of reporting, she enjoys watching new movies and exploring Bellingham with friends. You can contact her at rosaliejohnson.thefront@gmail.com.
