Big Red Eats Green was originally conceived as an opportunity for the campus community to become more familiar with the local food options in Bloomington in addition to the recognizing issues that may accompany any food being consumed. The festival in 2011 was extraordinarily successful and ideally, the 2012 festival was meant to stand and then build upon the original framework.

The festival’s purpose broadened this year as its focus shifted to reaching out to a larger amount of people as well as tying together the importance of local bikes, sustainable, healthy living, and locally grown food. The following report will go through the process of what I did to organize the festival, discuss the festival itself, and will end with recommendations for the following year.

I. The beginning of the internship was very slow moving and was made up of a lot of brainstorming sessions. I established relationships with important stakeholders and mentors such as Slow Food’s important sponsorship, the Union, RPS Dining, and I spent some time discussing how the festival ran with the previous organizer. A compilation of the notes from these meetings can be found in the appendix of the report. Following this, I made my own timeline for the summer that acted as a guideline and a checklist1. By the end it became clear that due to various obstacles and as a result of many factoring variables, but it did serve the purpose of giving me clear checklist of everything that needed to be accomplished.

A. The Location The next step required the identification of a location. The location turned out to be slightly harder to finalize than originally expected. Before the internship, the Indiana Memorial Union had promised the Frangipani Room for the use of the festival, but when we went in to confirm, we were informed that no outside food could be brought into the Union unless it was expressly prepared by Sodexo (the company currently contracted with the IMU). From there, we brainstormed a variety of places to hold the festival and came down to the following three: Dunn Meadow, the IUAM, or the Auditorium. Based on the desire to have a location that afforded the opportunity to hold the festival outside or inside, pending the location, the IUAM won out over the others. Weighing the pros and cons of each location and making contact with the sponsoring stakeholders for each location organizations took well into July, but without knowing where the festival would be held, it would have been impossible to contact restaurants and student organizations.

I held several meetings with the IUAM and the event coordinators at the museum to discuss how things would be run. Important topics covered included electricity, water availability, table provisions, set-up, and take-down. Finally, late into August, two plans were created. One layout was made with the expectation that all of the vendors would be outside, and the other layout was created with the expectation

1 See appendix that all of the vendors would be inside. The two layouts can be seen in the appendix. The layouts did change the day of BREG because it became apparent that the heat would be too much for the restaurants, but the original draft served as an excellent outline.

B. The Vendors During this time, a comprehensive list of potential vendors was being created. The final list can be seen in the appendix. All of the restaurants were approached individually and I spoke to each manager or chef that would be organizing the festival. It became extremely important to maintain these personal relationships. If they had attended the festival the previous year, I asked for feedback or suggestions for improvement and then invited them to re-attend the festival this year. Important topics that I covered included the following:

Menu Items (small items that highlight the local food) Packaging/(no-waste festival) Health Certificate and Temporary Food Service Application Tabling/Signage Pricing (1, 2, or 3 dollars) Set-up/Take-down

Contacting the restaurants and receiving their confirmation was probably the most intimidating and challenging aspect. Multiple restaurants still felt rather slighted from the previous year’s festival and expressed their chagrin to me. Learning to take their criticism with grace and not too personally became important. Additionally, actually getting a hold of some of the managers/restaurant owners became increasingly difficult. Many of them simply do not respond to email whereas others worked odd hours. If I received no response after contacting them multiple times over a period of a couple weeks, I eventually gave up.

While confirming with restaurants, I simultaneously contacted a potential group of local farms that may have been interested in contributing to the festival and representing and advertising the Bloomington Farmer’s Market. I also sent out a call to various student or community organizations that also may have been interested in attending the festival. With all of the organizations involved, I found it most efficient and effective to speak to people face-to-face or through a phone call as opposed to relying on email.

Once the word was out, many community or student organizations began to contact me wishing to participate in the festival. I received these emails or phone calls even the week of the festival. 2

2 The final list of vendors that were scheduled to participate in the festival can be seen in the appendix C. The Bike Festival Early in the summer, the bike intern, Kevin Sonoff, approached me with the possibility of combining the local food festival with a local bike festival he was hoping to host. At first it seemed a bit impossible to tie the two together other than hinging on the local economy. However, it soon became easy to modify the theme of the festival from local food to the idea of promoting healthy, sustainable living. Kevin was in charge of organizing the bike vendors up until the beginning of the school year when he handed them over to me. However, they were easier to organize because there were no health regulations to work around. Unfortunately, the local bike vendors canceled the day of the festival.

D. Publicity The aspect of publicity was the weakest part simply because everything else took so much time to plan that it slightly fell to the wayside. Throughout the summer, content for a website was created and a student was hired to design the posters, seen in the appendix. The poster design was sent to the RPS Dining system for the RPS monitors in addition to the turntables that are in the cafeterias. Probably the most effective action I took was to have one of my mentors Jeanne Sept, send out a campus-wide email to her colleagues alerting them to the fact that the festival was coming up and mentioning that it could be a potential opportunity for extra credit or the chance to incorporate the festival into their curriculum.

E. Waste Working with the No-Waste intern, Mark Milby, we determined that we should have at least four waste stations at the festival. Each station included a compost bin, a trash bin, and a recycling bin. It was arranged for One World Enterprises to take all of the compost collected at the festival. They dropped off the compost bins beforehand and then picked them all up after the festival. Mark arranged to have all of the trash and recycling bins at the festival and then helped set them up and take them down properly. Any food that was leftover, assuming the restaurants were willing, was donated and packaged for Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard.

E. Miscellaneous Planning

1. Tables Tables came from a variety of places. To begin with, Tom Fallwell from the physical plant provided some, Steve Akers also provided some, and at the last minute I was able to convince the Union to donate ten to the cause. The stipulation was that I had to arrange for pick-up and drop-off. Tables were tricky because I had originally asked vendors to bring their own, but it quickly became clear that it was a huge hassle for them to do this, and then some restaurants required three tables instead of the originally promised two. 2. Volunteers I had an online form by which volunteers could sign up. I also came up with a list of jobs for volunteers to do, and sent out a list of those assignments, a schedule, and the assignment descriptions by an email two days beforehand. If a person was signed up for a particularly long shift, I moved them around and gave them some variety. A list of jobs can be found in the appendix Recommendation: Work with Collins and E-Force through Collins to get a large volunteer effort. 3. Raffle and Extraneous Activities The festival included a raffle (a gift card to the Owlery because they were unable to attend the festival). In addition to the raffle, there were also three sign-ups available. The first was concurrent to the festival and was a tour of the Art Museum that explored food-related artwork in the first floor gallery. The second sign-up was the chance to go on a foraging tour lead by Lucille Bertuccio on the following Saturday and the final tour was the chance to go to the Farmer’s Market on the same Saturday. 4. Electricity I was extremely paranoid about not having electricity so I asked the physical plant for ten extension cords which we ended up not using, but I can’t regret being prepared. 5. Finances/Sponsorship Slow Food Bloomington kindly sponsored BREG and promised up to $1,000 with the stipulation that the fund act as an “emergency” fund, in the case where something unexpected happened. Otherwise, the office paid for the location and everything else was donated (resulting in various other sponsors: Slow Food IU, One World Enterprises, The Owlery, The IMU, RPS Dining, and IUOS to name a few) Recommendation: It is amazing how often people are willing to donate time, money, or resources they are asked. Sometime it just requires an inquiring mind or a little extra prompting. Always ask for a donation or discount, first if it seems plausible and especially if the favor will benefit the other party.

II. Big Red Eats Green (and Bikes) the Festival September 6, 2012 2-6 p.m.

Overall the festival ran smoothly, despite the heat of the day, but it could be described as a flurry of lists. There was a list of vendors and their scheduled arrival times, there was a list of things that needed to come from the E-House, there was a list of things to do before the festival began. I borrowed a friend’s truck to drive around in the morning to pick up the extension cords, two tents I rented from the Alumni center, and the tables from the union. The set-up went quickly with an excess of volunteers. The main issue became apparent when lots of restaurants were directly in the sun, and we did not have tents. Luckily, some vendors had brought their own tents, and I was able to borrow one from the auditorium. Set-up was given two hours, but did not take that long. I had vendors come in to the museum at two spots: in front and on the side. I also staggered the arrival of vendors which worked well, but many of them arrived late, and I realized too late that the restaurants all should have come at the last minute otherwise they were stuck in the heat for about six hours.

There were a couple of issues from the day that could be identified and should be resolved for the future festival. To begin with, the lack of music was unfortunate because it definitely would have done a lot to attract people. Additionally, being set up on the lawn of the IUAM allowed people to pass by rather than forcing students to walk through the festival. Some of the restaurants gave positive feedback whereas others were slightly disappointed with attendance and had a lot of food leftover. The farmers and student organizations, on the other hand, gave only positive feedback.

Most restaurants had to leave early from the festival because they had to return to serve customers at their own establishments. Consequently many people that came later had fewer options from which to choose. Restaurants that had a variety of smaller options and cooler, refreshing drinks were more successful than the vendors that sold whole sandwiches.

There were plenty of volunteers available throughout the day, and especially at the beginning when it became clear that there were too many volunteers than we had jobs available. The volunteers were most important at the end of the festival for cleaning up etc., and at the very beginning when many of them were handing out bracelets (handmade yarn bracelets were meant to give an estimate of how many people attended the festival).

IV. Potential Changes to BREG

One of the issues that we grappled with was the financial aspect of Big Red Eats Green. We do not require any of the vendors to pay to participate, but the festival comes as a huge expense to the office, especially when we are paying for the location. One idea thrown around for next year is the thought that we ask for donations from participating vendors. The main issue with this is that restaurants are already losing money and donating their time and human resources by participating in Big Red Eats Green. There may not be enough incentive to ask for donations.

The placement of the festival was really ideal, but somehow the entire thing felt less like a destination for people and more like a stumble-upon. The general stumble- upon effect could be a result of multiple things such as a lack of publicity or the layout of the festival. One way to improve attendance at the festival would be to have ATM machines available for students because so few of them carry cash around, and if they did not know BREG was happening, they may have been unlikely to carry cash on them. Both of these aspects of BREG should be improved for future festivals.

BREG was relatively large, but it still did not manage to attract as many students as was originally hoped. Around 850 bracelets were made, and all were handed out after only two hours, but that does not necessarily indicate that all 850 of those people bought food. It seems more likely that people walked through and enjoyed the sights, smells, and sounds, but did not actually buy food from the vendors. This is an issue that needs resolving because if the restaurants are unhappy, they will be less likely to return to the festival next year. Part of the reason fewer students came was due to lack of attraction. I made multiple efforts to get some bands at Big Red Eats Green, but no one ever confirmed. It was an extremely frustrating process, but it is also a task for which a second intern may be good to have.

Just a couple weeks previously to Big Red Eats Green, VegIU held its own festival and also invited some local vegetarian/vegan restaurants onto the campus in Dunn Meadow. On top of that, Slow Food had been planning a similar festival just a month before Big Red Eats Green. It seems slightly illogical to have all of these initiatives occurring within a similar timeframe and making it harder on local restaurants to participate. It may be prudent to initiate a larger, collaborative effort to combine these festivals especially when many of the goals tend to overlap.

III. Challenges and Recommendations

The first obvious challenge was the location, as discussed previously, and the fact that is took such a long time to finalize was the issue. However, it was important to weigh the pros and cons of each potential place in order to make an informed decision. When looking for a location, I was searching for a place that would allow outside food to be served, could offer an inside and outside location, could hold around 30 vendors, and was not overly expensive. When looking for a location, I constantly kept Dunn Meadow as a backup plan, assuming I could rent a tent if it rained. The main issue with the IUAM came from some miscommunication on cost. We were originally told one estimate, but by the end of the festival, the price had elevated to a much greater amount.

Recommendation: Maintain the already-established relationship with the Indiana University Art Museum, but be sure to be completely clear on its full price.

Recommendation: On the same line as the location, set-up was important as well. I asked restaurants if they had qualms about who they were placed next to, but that made my life much harder. When making a layout for the following year, send it to everyone as a final decision and give vendors no choice in the matter Recommendation: Have a clear list of vendors that require electricity. Give restaurants two tables and other organizations one table. Do not be afraid to have some organizations share one table.

Recommendation: Have organizations set up first, and schedule the restaurants for later and at the very last minute so that no food is left in the heat for too long. Those restaurants with electricity needs should come a little bit sooner

Another challenge experienced closer to the festival which was also a huge issue in the previous year was being sure that everyone had their temporary food service application and health certificate turned into the INLOCC on time. It was less of an issue this year, but it still turned out to be quite the hassle for the restaurants at the last minute.

Recommendation: Use all of the forms that are on file on the Oncourse project site for the next year’s festival.

One major challenge I noticed was being forced to reiterate things I had stated in emails. In general, people, especially extremely busy restaurant owners or chefs, do not read emails. I sent two follow-up emails the de-briefed people on how the festival would be functioning, but I am generally under the impression that they were ineffective.

Recommendation: When sitting down with the restaurants, summarize everything from the beginning; give them a deadline to get all of the information into you that you need. Ask for their contact information, especially a phone number, and then send one email the week before the festival and ask if they need any clarification about anything. Otherwise, do everything through phone calls or visits, but keep contact to a minimum so that you are not bothering them.

Recommendation: As a general rule, if people are not responding, do not ever be afraid to keep contacting them through various means. People are busy and forget easily, especially with emails, however, it is always most effective to call or to confront someone.

Publicity was a huge challenge for me simply because I lacked the knowledge about how to efficiently market the festival. On top of that, as it gets closer to the festival, emailing and staying in contact with people begins to take up a lot of time. I did manage to advertise the festival in a couple community bulletins and calendars. ON top of that, using the twitter and facebook was relatively successful. I also printed posters, but I myself did not have a lot of time to put them up, and I relied on friends and fellow interns to help me out with that.

Recommendation: It may be prudent to hire a second intern whose sole job is to publicize the festival or work with a business student who can effectively market the festival. It is so important, but extremely difficult for someone who is simultaneously trying to think of so many other things.

One interesting and rather unexpected challenge was that I had three or four vendors cancel the week of the festival. One of the bike vendors canceled the night before, and one of the local bike shops did not even show up. The bike festival, in general, felt like an afterthought. Additionally, some restaurant/farm vendors also canceled at the last minute. It is important to keep in mind that those selling food are losing money on this endeavor. It is certainly free advertising for them, but we are also asking a lot of the restaurants or smaller ventures to spend the day away from their establishment selling expensive food at a discounted price. It is especially frustrating for them when they have a lot of food leftover.

Recommendation: Don’t include the bike festival next year. It compromised the original goal of the festival. For the restaurants or those selling food, be sure to underline the importance of selling small amounts food at 1,2, or 3 dollars. For farmers, emphasize the idea that advertising their farm and the farmer’s market is more important than trying to sell vegetables that students will be unwilling to lug around the rest of the day.

The final major challenge I would discuss is the fact that when the school year begins and the intern is still organizing the festival, he/she needs to be prepared for the chaos that will ensue.

Recommendation: Be as organized as possible and have as much of the festival organized as possible before the school year begins.

Recommendation: Perhaps most importantly, the intern should not be afraid to ask others for help. It is extremely tempting to try and do everything alone, but this is not nearly as effective or efficient and much more can be accomplished with multiple people on a project.

IV. Final Thoughts Overall, Big Red Eats Green was relatively successful in its second year running, but it could definitely stand for some improvements. It’s goal is to introduce students to the plethora of available ways to consume from local farms or restaurants that source locally. In doing so, it is meant to increase demand and hopefully begin to change the system currently in place. In order to truly be effective, it seems apparent that there needs to be a continuum of momentum for the initiative. Following BREG, there should be more events, surveys, focus groups, or a marketing campaign to advertise the farmer’s markets and the vendors at BREG. The Food Working Group could take charge or perhaps another food intern could be specifically designated to this purpose.

The festival itself could certainly benefit from the changes suggested in previous sections. BREG could be more effectively planned with two coordinators splitting the job as long as the job was split equally and the two could work efficiently together. It is certainly possible for one person to plan, but it could be more effective and make a greater impact with two people on the job. The addition of the bike festival certainly added a new twist to the original theme and brought together a larger group of stakeholders, but it seems inefficient to include the bike fair again, and the group of local bike shops that were invited was less reliable than the local food vendors.

Big Red Eats Green is an important event to continue in the future. It is unique and brings an exciting group of people onto the campus that rarely come onto the campus. The festival has the potential to make a great difference for students, faculty, and staff and keeps the Office of Sustainability as a connecting focal point for campus and community food organizations. Hopefully the time and resources can be found to continue this event will be available in the future, especially with the upcoming 2014 themester. Sourcing local food and bringing the issues to the University and to students is a constant challenge, but perseverance, passion, and food have the potential to act as strong driving factors.

Appendix: 1. Timeline:

Jun 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 201 2 10 11 12 13 14 15 – Know 16 -Work on -List of - Complete -Email exactly what website all Locations/Contac Checklist Vendors we need from week!!) t all of them concerning what -Make vendors - Reserve Dunn we need to cover sure -Have a Meadow exactly with checklist location - Have a potential Vendors is --Know how Budget for (Insurance/Healt complete composting various scenarios h Certificate etc. for when will work (BCAT (consider we talk (Contact Jeff having a student to Mease) there to video , vendors WIUX, WFIU, WTIU) 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 -Work on - Interim report -Know how -Revised website all due many bins we Interim Report week!! will need, where Uploaded they will be, -Contact Mark how many signs to discuss we will need, Waste and who is Auditing creating them, -Have a who is finalized list of providing the vendors? bins (see next step) -Contact Chris to determine what he can provide for us such as hand- washing stations/tables 24 25 26 27 28 29 Know your 30 - Finalize all - Confer with set-up, *remember website details Emilie, Sara, including to work on with Elisabeth Jeanne, Sandra vendor poster design about what we placement, so you can expect from tables begin to ask Vendors so that chairs/waste fellow You can write bins etc. (ask interns for an email to fellow interns feedback!! vendors. Have for feedback) them double - Have all check it waste coordinated - Jul 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 201 -Know - Send letter to - 2 exactly Vendors which explaining what vendors we expect in (from all terms of waste, categories!) educational will be purpose, there!! requirements for -Event serving food, website prices, and their should be role up at this point! 8 9 10 – Have all 11 12 13 14 - ask food advertisement - Compose Symposium studies posters created/ email to Page uploaded about flyers for RPS volunteers/know volunteers? (~300), contact exactly what various centers: you are asking cultural, athletics of them! to determine how best to advertise to them -Begin creating for the TV monitor -Think about advertising to students off campus?

15 16 17 18 – Contact 19 20 21 - Report outline Volunteers (E- due force, IU slow food, other interns, AXE, SSC, Sprouts )

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 - Poster Draft due -Email vendors to mentors asking for a complete menu - Final Report due 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 - First poster -Begin putting -Finalize all - uploaded up ads, be sure bands that will Design/Priint you know how to be present entire put an ad on all -Contact WIUX “giveaway” TV monitors about Promo, package HEralld TIMes, designed… and IDS so a table with a food map, recipes, a link to the website along with a list of various organizations Aug 5 6 7 – Coordinate 8 9 10 11 201 volunteers that - Send an email - Purchase a 2 can advertise to to vendors watermelon classes ( actually asking for their for the go into their menus facebook classes/speak to advertisemen profs/write on t! (or steal chalk boards!) one from -Doodle poll all Stranger’s volunteers to Hill  ) determine what times they are available September 6th 12 13 14 15 – Have all 16 17 18 *Remember - Create menus from - Have students facebook restaurants and posters for will be here event make posters for the front of soon and - Consider the fair tables ready you need to asking for -Begin advertise!!! volunteers scheduling to help when volunteers you make will work and at posters!! what jobs (Counting people coming in, helping with set-up/take- down, E-force to supervise waste, taking pictures for the food map on the website, handing out surveys)

19 20 – Place flyers 21 22 23 24 25- Design in food courts and -Write up a final - - write survey sign to post have all TV reminder for for vendors for around monitors with an Vendors after the fair campus to advertisement - Email each point people band with the in the right schedule, when direction Email volunteers and where they - Write up a about their will be in the survey for upcoming lineup etc. those that expectations attend and those that See if Steve participate Akers can put something in the RPS newsletter? 26 27 28 29 – Have a 30 31 1 – Chalking -Contact write-up of the Department heads exact schedule, about the fair, when set- suggest potential up/take-down extra credit will happen options ask them to advertise in Tie up any and class Please? all loose ends - Send out an event to Sustainability Newsletter and other places 2 3 - 4 5 6 BREG 7 8 -upload food Movie map Showing: -send out a Forks thank you to over vendors Knives including the survey etc. -Send thank you to all volunteers -Send thank you to mentors Sep 201 -Send thank 2 you to Sponsors (Slow Food/RPS/C hris Gray and the Union etc. ) 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Have a paper about the fair to hand out to potential vendors/ have sent mass email or begun contacting etc. Determine composting shenanigans 1) Come up with a Budget for Emilie!! 2) CHARGE OF ORIENTATION? WHO IS IN CHARGE OF WELCOME WEEK? Sandra Fowler (RPS) and the Union chef, Greek chefs? (Ongoing) 3) June 22nd Revised Interim Report Uploaded 4) Have posters completely designed, identified where they will be hung June 28th 5) Know Dates/Times of the pre-event, the festival, and the post-event July 1st July-August 1) July 13th Symposium Page Uploaded 2) Create facebook event July 13th 3) July 16th Report Outline due to Mentors 4) Decide how the festival will best: recycle (talk to Mark?), compost (talk to Lea/ Sara?), reduce food waste July 20th 5) July 23rd Poster Draft Due to Mentors 6) July 25th First Draft of Report due to Mentors 7) Understand clean-up and take-down July 27 8) July 30h First Poster Uploaded 9) Have entire giveaway package designed and completed August 1st 10)Design signs to point people in the right direction August 1st 11)Know the role of specific volunteers/groups of volunteers August 1st 12)Confirm Menu items? So that we can be prepared to take waste?August 1st 13)Know where each table in the room will be August 1st 14)Confirm which bands will be present and at what times August 1st 15)Have flyers printed for welcome week involvement fair August 1st 16)August 3rd Internship Symposium August-September 1) August 6th Final draft of report due to Mentors 2) Be in contact with all volunteers a. Designate Jobs a.i. Helping to unload/set up/ and then take down a.ii. E-force in charge of monitoring waste a.iii. Someone (maybe multiple) to take pictures of menu, of vendor, of food and upload to an online food map 3) ABSOLUTELY NO PAPER/FLYERS etc. Send out “how best to table” to vendors. Also make it clear to student groups that we want something interactive August 20th 4) Put posters in dorms and cultural centers and wherever else was decided 5) Come up with signage for recycling/composting etc. Decide to place bins in multiple spots. For example, by the biddle hotel and at the other side of the union- August 10th 6) Contact Department heads and specific classes. Come up with ways to offer extra credit August 15th 7) Make sure the Press (WIUX, Herald times, IDS) know about it August 25th? 8) Have it advertised on TV’s around campus August 10th 9) Confirm with all vendors and all bands etc. 10)September 1st 11)Have surveys for EVERYONE September 1st 12)Breathe all the time

2. Final list of vendors Bloomingfoods Blu Boy Bread and Roses/Jody Chile Woman Dunn Meadow Feast Fischer Heartland Family Hilltop Hoosier HIlls Food Bank IUOS Mother Hubbards Laughing Planet/Soma Lennie's LGG Orchard OxFam RPS Slow Food IU Slow Food Bloomington Stranger's Hill Organics SPROUTS Topos 403 Restaurant Tallent TPC Upland Brewery WE Farm City of Bloomington Bloomington Transit IU Parking IU Campus Bus IUSF little 500 IU outdoor adventures Healthy IU Bicycle Garage Bikesmiths Bicycle Steering Committee Bloomington Bicycle Club IUPD