Alum Plants New Garden for Westmont Cafeteria

Alumnus Anthony Waldrop ’11 cultivated his love for environmental sustainability while a student at Westmont. Waldrop has now spearheaded an effort to provide campus-grown produce for Westmont’s dining services. He has built a 6,000-square-foot garden on the southern end of campus and has plans to build another 7,000-square-foot garden on the western edge.

Waldrop, an employee of Sodexo, which provides dining services to Westmont’s Dining Commons, has attracted about 40 student volunteers. Together, they have harvested about 200 pounds of lettuce, peas, onions, carrots and cilantro.

Over the past eight weeks, the Westmont Garden has been able to provide 17 percent of the salad-bar lettuce mix. “In the summer we’ll be planting bell peppers, jalapenos, many varieties of tomatoes, eggplant, squash, corn and pumpkins as well,” Waldrop says. “We hope to produce as much food as we can, but our main goal is to use the garden as an educational resource for the Westmont community through volunteering, internships, awareness and events.”

The results have been fruitful. On April 5, volunteers plucked about 10 pounds of carrots from the garden, washed them and offered them in the Dinning Commons. They were gone in 45 minutes. “The campus response has been phenomenal,” he says. “Awareness of the garden has increased considerably this year and so has our volunteer base.

“The Westmont community is becoming more aware about the origins of its food and the implications of food production upon our world. We want to continue to build student involvement, creating a sense of responsibility over the food that we are eating.”

While at Westmont, Waldrop was involved with Westmont Earth Ministry, devoted to encouraging students to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, and Westmont A Rocha, which fosters a Biblical view of environmental stewardship through education and service. He spent a semester studying in Costa Rica, learning more about environmentalism. He also traveled to a summit at Eastern University held by Renewal, a Christian creation care network for students.

After graduating in 2011, Waldrop spent three months interning with A Rocha Santa Barbara on their three-acre farm, growing produce for the underserved communities of Santa Barbara. Since Sodexo hired him in September 2011, he has visited the UC Davis dining services team to learn from its sustainability initiatives. He also co-presented a paper, “Developing a Garden Program at your Sodexo Site,” at SEED, the regional sustainability conference for Sodexo.

“I have been extremely blessed by this opportunity from Sodexo to fulfill a dream that I had during my time at Westmont,” he says.

To receive garden updates, volunteer times, or general info e-mail westmont.garden@gmail.com. The Westmont Dining Services Sustainability website is: http://blogs.westmont.edu/garden/