FFT is confronting questions after its attempts to have the Student Fee Committee forgive the $33, 994 of student fee money it overspent in the 2008-2009 school year, met with mixed results at the SFC's overage hearing on October 21.

By the time Anna Sandau sits down for her 7:45 a.m. class at Portland State University, she has been awake for 3 hours, walking her dog, practicing yoga, and riding her bicycle to school through the cold, wet morning. After her classes end at noon, Sandau can be found serving local and organic meals at Food For Thought Cafe, a student-run eatery down in the basement of the Smith Memorial Student Union, which is dedicated to promoting sustainability at PSU.

“I get excited to come to work, knowing that the cafe provides a safe and nurturing place where students can eat healthy food,” Sandau said.

Of late, Sandau's safe and nurturing place has become the swirling center of a gathering storm of debate over the university's vocal commitment to sustainability, FFT's role in this envisioned future, and the financial implications of reaching for sustainability in the midst of a university budget crisis rooted in the world-wide economic recession.

FFT is confronting questions after its attempts to have the Student Fee Committee forgive the $33, 994 of student fee money it overspent in the 2008-2009 school year, met with mixed results at the SFC's overage hearing on October 21. A feature followed in the November issue of The Portland Spectator, which judged FFT as a failed experiment in sustainability.

Responding to budget constraints in a climate of recession, the SFC voted to justify only $18,000 of FFT's debt, passing a motion to forgive that amount in quarterly installments of $4,500, according to the hearing minutes. The SFC concluded that the overspending was a result of mismanagement and agreed to quarterly installments as a way of monitoring FFT's progress, according to SFC Chair Johnnie Ozimkowski. The group appears committed to helping FFT break even and ultimately see profit which could be reserved in a discretionary fund as insurance for things like broken dishwashers, Ozimkowski stated.

“Fiscal conservatism is the philosophy of the year,” said Ozimkowski, “but we know [FFT's mission] is right. You gotta run the experiment and see if it works. I know they're gonna do it. I want my little brother and sister to be able to come to PSU and have great $5 lunches at Food For Thought.”

From their humble start as an idea in the minds of a group of PSU students, to their opening in 2002 and into the present, FFT has faced an uphill battle, said Patrick Lamson-Hall, a senior FFT employee. With the support of Dr. Janet Hammer, program director of PSU's Social Equity and Opportunity Forum, FFT managed to pry open a niche for themselves on campus, despite Aramak's exclusive-rights food services contract with the university. The group's growing pains have included a closure for restructuring in the fall of 2008 and the ongoing competition for customers with Aramark, the multi-national food service provider which controls all other campus eateries, event catering, and snack machines, according to Lamson-Hall. Despite the competition from Aramark, Ozimkowski believes FFT will succeed and has high expectations for the profitability of their fledgling catering service.

“Food For Thought should be able to charge Aramark prices when catering on-campus events, because organizations have already budgeted for those prices,” Ozimkowski said, adding that FFT would see a healthy profit margin at those prices, in part because of the free space and utilities provided by PSU.

“Today, we are running at a profit,” Lamson-Hall stated. “The problems of last year are solved. This year we will make money.”

FFT is a student organization which receives a portion of the student fees tacked on to every PSU student's tuition bill. Student organizations which receive student fee money run the gamut from the Anime Club to the Fermentation Society. Lamson-Hall believes that “dollar for dollar, FFT serves more students for less money, per capita, than any other student group on campus.” The cafe is open to the public from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays, unlike the Arab-Persian Student Organization, for example, which serves a smaller constituency. In comparison, the Arab-Persion Student Organization received $28,072 from SFC for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, while FFT received $55,023, according to budgets published by SFC.

“Why shouldn't we be spending student fees,” Lamson-Hall asked. “As a student group, we generate the highest percentage of our own revenue. Student fee money helps us keep costs down.”

That news was well received by some of the PSU students who pack into FFT, the only campus eatery not controlled under Aramark's food service contract with the university, to grab breakfast, study for tests, or fill up on homemade soup.

“It's just good food in general,” said Andy Morrow, 20, on his way back to class after some thick, whole wheat French toast. “And cheap too. Cheaper than the pre-packaged crap upstairs.”

“It's a healthier option,” said Joshua Rossman, 23, glancing up while reading a book. “In case we don't want to eat hamburgers and Coke.”

“I'd rather have my money go here, to a student-run organization, than all the other places upstairs,” said Kindi Lantz, 27, cramming for a business exam.

FFT, whose sales increased 30 percent last year, is counting on that kind of support as it evolves. Lamson-Hall presented FFT's request to the SFC with two other employees and acknowledged that last years financial difficulties were due to FFT “operating inefficiently”. In a memo to his co-workers describing the current difficulties, Lamson-Hall highlighted the earning potential of new ventures, such as catering campus events and selling sack lunches. He remains confident and fully committed to FFT's vision statement of 'the bulk of food served on campus at PSU grown locally and sustainably... with a wide variety of healthy, tasty, affordable food.'

“We provide a valued service,” Lamson-Hall wrote in the FFT memo. “Local, sustainable, organic food at prices students can afford. And a comfortable, safe, welcoming space where people can study and groups can meet.”

Questions were also raised in The Portland Spectator surrounding FFT's adherence to their mission statement goals: 'purchasing and serving local, seasonal organic foods, supporting locally owned businesses and fair businesses and labor practices, providing healthy and affordable food choices to the campus community, performing as many of the value-adding steps in food production as possible in-house, supporting and empowering student workers with excellent working conditions and living wages, and acting with due regard for environmental concerns (reducing waste, composting, recycling, etc.).' In response to the allegations by The Spectator that the cafe was mismanaged and not providing local, sustainable food, Marie Schramke, Student Affairs' advisor to FFT, said that they should not be judged as a static entity but recognized rather as “a dynamic work-in-progress by dedicated, idealistic students” gaining knowledge and experience as the experiment moves forward.

“At the moment, there is some disconnect from their goal and the end product they're serving,” said Schramke, who sees herself as an advocate, as well as advisor to FFT. Schramke was quick to point out, however, that an integral part of FFT's importance to PSU is the “educational opportunity for real-world experience in food systems sustainability.”

According to Lamson-Hall, FFT buys food from Norris Dairy, a Willamette valley farm, Stumptown Coffee of Portland, Columbia Gorge Juice, Charlie's Produce, an employee-owned Seattle produce distributor with offices in Portland, and Food Services of America, which distributes in the northwest quadrant of the U.S. When choosing produce and food for purchase from these distributors, FFT places the highest priority on sustainability with particular attention to buying as local as possible, Lamson-Hall stated. Though he admitted that FFT has not yet achieved the percentages of local, organic produce they would like to offer, Lamson-Hall pointed to Aramark's global distribution network, its multitude of pre-packaged, processed, refined and manufactured food offerings, and its presentation of out of season and internationally sourced produce as a counterpoint. When dealing with contract restrictions placed by Aramark, strict regulations on purchasing through the PSU Business Office, and their limited buying power as a small eatery, it can be difficult for FFT to achieve their sustainability goals, both Schramke and Lamson-Hall acknowledged. Several FFT employees and volunteers seek produce donations each week at local farmers' markets in an effort to bridge the gaps and move closer to the nebulous destination of total sustainability.

“Food sustainability is an evolving dialogue,” said Lamson-Hall.

Amidst the gathering clouds of national debate on global warming, energy independence, economic recession and health care, FFT could be viewed both as a lightning rod and local barometer for the evolving dialogue of sustainability, Lamson-Hall believes. In an October 15 visit to Portland for the Institue of Science, Engineering and Pubic Policy lecture series, Dr. Andrew Weil, founder of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and nationally recognized health and nutrition guru, cited the elimination of all processed, refined and manufactured foods from the diet as his number one recommendation for staying healthy. Speaking about the urgent need for a complete overhaul of the U.S. health care system at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Weil specifically pointed out the need for educational institutions to model food system sustainability for students by providing healthy, whole, local and organic food on campus. The embattled Food for Thought Cafe carries these aspirations embedded within its mission statement.

Former professor at PSU's School of Community Health, Phil Kreitner, believes its time for the debate revolving around FFT to shift over to how the university and student body can support this dynamic, evolving experiment in food systems sustainability, and away from how profitable they can become or how competitive they can be in a market that's tilted heavily in favor of Aramark.

“PSU is currently in major chest-pounding mode concerning sustainability,” said Kreitner. “Name any social/economic system more crucial to any societal aspirations/pretensions to sustainability than food. Yet, there is no economic function more heavily subsidized than the industrial, commodity food system.”

Currently researching and writing a book on the global environmental importance of food systems, Kreitner sees an opportunity for PSU, only a year removed from receiving a $25 million Sustainability Grant from the Miller Foundation, to act on their verbal commitment to sustainability, exemplified by their new slogan, 'Green. It's more than our school color.'

“The optimum place to start raising consciousness, developing skills and altering behavior, especially for young people,” said Kreitner, “ is with the personal and global consequences of what we swallow.”

PSU's vehemence in touting its commitment to sustainability was confirmed by the 67,000 results when the word, sustainability, was searched on their website. The university has long prided itself on civic leadership, embodied by the school motto, 'Let knowledge serve the city.' Current campus tours spotlight FFT as an example of PSU's commitment to sustainability, and an examination of PSU's Nested Systems Model for Sustainability, created by PSU students at the Oregon University System Campus Sustainability Conference in 2008, finds FFT nestled at the very core of the graphic illustration.

Kreitner believes the already-existing FFT cafe is a great place for PSU to act on this commitment.

“Must we insist that a campus-based food operation, dedicated to using food itself as a device to raise consciousness, develop skills and alter behavior, be obligated to create a veritable alternative economic universe of immediate self-sufficiency and profitability, no less?” Kreitner wondered. “Today's prevailing graduation rap is an exhortation to go out into the world and make it a more equitable, sustainable place. Wouldn't that include efforts in that vein on campus?”

Back at the cafe in the basement of the Smith Memorial Student Union, Anna Sandau believes strongly in Food for Thought's mission of promoting sustainability, but she says it is the simple pleasure of serving her customers “really good, real food” that keeps her going through the long, busy days.

“People tell me all the time that this is the only place they can find real food around here,” said Sandau. “It's a community. By coming to Food For Thought, people are feeding more than their bodies; they feed their minds.”

Despite widespread verbal support across campus, it appears Food For Thought will need to prove that they can continue to feed the cash register as well, in order to keep their doors open and the experiment in sustainability running at PSU for the next seven years and beyond.