Vegans, Veggies & Vibes | Tuesdays from 4-6 p.m. at Westwood House
Vegans, Veggies, and Vibes is a vegan meal kit program put on by Westwood House. Every week, volunteers pack kits with a recipe and all the ingredients you need to make a delicious and nutritious vegan meal. Meals are distributed on Tuesdays from 4-6 p.m. Sign up here for your free meal kit!
Want access to all of our previous recipes? Check out our Youtube Channel for a full archive of Vegans, Veggies, and Vibes videos here and recipes here!
Why?
History
Our goal is to empower students to cook new foods, educate students on what healthy eating can look like, and most importantly feed students.
EMPOWERMENT: We choose recipes that are both new and experimental, but also easy enough for students to make in their own homes. These recipes give students the ability to try new foods and combinations they may have never felt comfortable or been able to on their own.
EDUCATION: Through our YouTube videos, we teach students about the foods they are eating as well as the cooking techniques and vocabulary used in each recipe.
NOURISH: Each recipe is adjusted to ensure that it is not only delicious, but nutritious for our students. This is important to our volunteers because as of 2016 over HALF of undergraduate students on the university of Kansas’ campus were food insecure.
When COVID hit and students were sent home, Westwood House was no longer able to serve any food. Student intern Karis Brown, and recent graduate Amarais Towle were passionate about food ministry and wanted to find a way to keep the programs alive! During the summer of 2020 Karis and Amarais began hosting livestreams where they taught students how to cook vegan meals and shared a song to go along with the meal.
When school started in the fall of 2020, they started putting together meal kits for students to go along with their live stream. Soon after, the program transitioned from live streams to YouTube videos to allow for easier access for the students they served.
Over the course of the school year, the program grew until they were consistently handing out 45 meal kits a week to students with help from their loyal volunteers Grace Burland and Imaya Figueroa.
