Campus Kitchen

Campus Kitchen Saint Louis University (CKSLU) has been a part of SLU since 2001 and is a student-led volunteer organization dedicated to fighting for food justice in and around our neighborhood.

Volunteering Information

Sign Up to Volunteer

For the 2024-2025 academic year, our shifts are as follows:

About The Kitchen

Campus Kitchen addresses food justice issues by reducing food waste and providing meals to those who are hungry. Using donated food that would otherwise be wasted, volunteers — mainly SLU students, staff and faculty — prepare, package and deliver about 400 meals a week to people who are food insecure. These are men, women, children and seniors who live independently in homes across the street from our SLU campus, as well as those who live in nearby emergency shelters and transitional housing. In addition to meals, we provide our excess fresh produce to various non-profit organizations. The efforts of CKSLU feed about 600 individuals each week.

Our food recovery efforts recover about 1,000 pounds of food weekly from our community partner, Trader Joe’s. This food would be thrown away as unsellable products for various reasons (e.g. a smashed box top, one bad apple in a five-pound bag, too close to the “best by” date). We also partner with DineSLU to recover additional food and work together to reduce food waste.

Campus Kitchen Saint Louis University also provides an environment for community-based learning and community building. Students have opportunities to investigate and promote various food justice and hunger advocacy initiatives and form meaningful personal relationships with those they serve. Once a month, we develop and participate in a Beyond the Meals program, which may be anything from a game night to a yoga class, as an empowering way of fostering these relationships. Hunger is not simply an empty stomach; it is often accompanied by isolation and loneliness. CKSLU volunteers strive to deliver companionship and conversation in addition to meals.