Welcome to Green Grants: The People Behind the Projects. Below is an interview with Jon Chin (NYU Steinhardt, Graduate) and Kitty Liang (NYU Stern, Undergraduate) of Open Kitchen, an initiative of Share Meals that received a Green Grant. Open Kitchen is a series of community classes that brings NYU students together and teaches them how to cook. Stay up-to-date with upcoming events here.
GG: Where did you get the idea for your Green Grants project and why did you see a need for this project?
Jon Chin: Another Steinhardt Master’s student [Leanne Brown] a couple years ago did her thesis on developing a $4 per day cookbook, so I thought it would be great to take that and put it into practice. Our first Open Kitchen class was led by her, and we were able to get students the culinary and shopping skills that they needed.
NYU is this weird and tricky thing. It’s in the middle of NYC, so the cost of living is extremely high. This is the first time students are living on their own and also a lot of them probably aren’t coming from high-cost living areas, so it’s really tough for them to be able to budget correctly–to pay for tuition, clothes and especially food–and I know that if students aren’t eating well, then they’re not performing well. So one really great way to build a stronger community, to build a better NYU, is to make sure our students are eating well. I want to show students a) how to cook for themselves–if they can cook at home, they can reduce their grocery budget by a lot–and b) how to cook healthily. We might be feeding ourselves, but we might be feeding ourselves the wrong things, and that does disastrous things for our health and for our energy and performance. I want to build a better NYU through food.
