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Fresh approach: Student-led program at ISU makes produce more accessible

Two young college students sit, smiling, behind a table covered in a black-and-white checkered tablecloth. Atop sits green apples, yellow bananas, and dark berries in wooden crates, as well as a variety of filled brown paper sacks. The table also has a laptop on it, and two signs. One lists the variety of fruits and vegetables available. The other says "Swap and Share." Sitting behind the table on the left is a man, with black curly hair, wearing a green hooded-sweatshirt. On the right is a woman, with long brown hair. She's wearing a front-zippered dark sweatshirt.
Ryleigh Hickman
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Courtesy Illinois State University Office of Sustainability
Tommy Fox, left, and Izzy Ebersold, ISU students working with the campus' sustainability office, sit behind the Redbird Fresh Market table on a Friday last fall. The pick-up site is set up most Fridays in ISU's Bone Student Center for program participants.

A new ISU program is getting more fruits and veggies on the plates of students who live off-campus, while also furthering the university’s sustainability initiatives.

The Redbird Fresh Market launched this fall with more than 125 subscriptions, and its spring season begins in February. The student-designed and student-managed program offers an eight-week package of fresh produce, available for pick-up most Fridays at the Bone Student Center.

A big selling point is that subscriptions only cost about $8 per week, said Ryleigh Hickman, an anthropology graduate student who works in ISU’s Office of Sustainability, and who helps manage the market. Online registration for this spring ends at 11:59 p.m. Jan. 24 [Friday]. Organizers know some students can't afford that $64 seasonal subscription: They can apply on the registration page to have the fee waived.

Students living in campus dorms can access fresh fruits and vegetables daily in the dining halls. But that isn’t always the case for those, like Hickman, who live in nearby campus rentals.

“We call [it] the Normal food desert,” she said. “You can get many snacks from the convenience stores and everything, but you don't really have access to fresh produce,” around the campus-area neighborhoods.

An urban food desert is defined as a neighborhood or community area where at least a third of the residents live more than a mile from a place like a grocery store. It’s often compounded when those residents [such as many college students] live on limited budgets and lack transportation, according to a 2023 study explored by Inside Higher Education.

How the market materialized

The Redbird Fresh Market is an example of what can happen when college students imagine — and then execute — an idea to fruition. In this case, ISU’s College of Business Hagge Innovation Institute fostered the setting for its students to research the problem, then draft and present a proposal.

Institute director Peter Kaufman’s course encouraged students to address the problem of food insecurity on campus. Hickman said those students sought feedback from ISU’s off-campus population, and then researched programs such as farmers’ markets and CSAs, as well as a circa-2012 ISU program called Fresh Favs that languished around the time of the COVID pandemic.

This summer, Kaufman's students took their proposal to ISU administrators in dining services, and campus sustainability. Tommy Fox, a marketing student in that class, now is among the students who lead the program with Hickman.

Ryleigh Hickman is an anthropology graduate student who works in ISU’s Office of Sustainability, and helps manage the market.

Student-powered as a working model

One of the unique elements of this market is that it's designed by students, for students, and its managed by their peers, said Hickman.

“The students do all of the ordering. So we choose all of the produce that's going to be in that bag. We are the ones dealing with the money and everything. And all of the students — the day of — we are putting all of that produce together into the bags,” she said.

“At every step of the way, it is students entirely involved. Of course, we have the directors of the office who are watching and making sure that everything's going well. But they are completely hands off,” allowing students to gain management skills, and shop for foods they know students like.

How Redbird Fresh Market works

The program’s model relies on a combination of accessing ISU’s bulk procurement pricing, offering an on-campus pick-up site, and focusing on student needs, said Hickman.

“We're buying in such large quantities, that the produce is effectively cheaper. And again, we're not making a profit off of it. So there's not that profit margin that we're trying to make either,” she said.

“You're provided with a huge amount of fruit and vegetables that is exorbitantly cheaper than you're going to get anywhere else."

ISU allowing pick-up at Bone also makes the program more accessible.

Each bag is filled with nearly a dozen types of fruits and vegetables, each week, said Hickman, adding ISU students and employees who enroll in the program see a wide array of items.

A Redbird Fresh Market logo printed on a brown bag, serves as a platter displaying a variety of fruits and vegetables including green bunch of spinach, red and yellow peppers, yellow bananas and red cherry tomatoes.
Courtesy ISU Office of Sustainability
Fresh produce available through the Redbird Fresh Market.

Some fall offerings included zucchini, guava, mangoes, cherry tomatoes, shallots, apples, oranges, and bananas. The market offers the basics, but student managers encourage a little culinary adventure, too, she said.

“I know a lot of students might not be interested in, you know, shallots, or maybe guava. Like those items might be a little bit different for what they usually buy," said Hickman. "So we try and keep it kind of simple, and then have like, one or two items that are kind of unique."

Sustainability key element of new program

The Sustainability Office is a natural to take the lead on the program, said Hickman, who works closely with college administrators from that office, as well as the events and dining area.

“When we're packing these bags and we get bad vegetables and stuff, we know how to compost," she said. "We're using paper bags — which are recyclable or compostable.That is related to our sustainability initiatives of the office, but also of the university as a whole."

One such initiative focuses on creating a zero waste environment — recycling, composting, and re-using items when possible. The market incorporates that by offering a swap-and-share table. Then, leftovers go to the campus-area School Street Food Pantry that also tackles food insecurity issues.

“So it's kind of, like, a really cool thing to have it on Fridays, where as soon as our program ends, they get all of that fresh fruit and produce. And I know that they're really grateful for it,” said Hickman.

Community members who want to sponsor a seasonal membership for a student, can do so at the market's registration page.

Michele Steinbacher was a WGLT correspondent, joining the staff in 2020. She left the station in 2024.