UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Culinary Medicine Club was recently awarded $4,000 from Penn State’s Student Engagement Network (SEN) through the SEN Grant program to support the club’s events and charity efforts.
The Culinary Medicine Club, advised by Instructor Jennifer Meengs in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, teaches students the value of nutrition in the prevention and treatment of various diseases through diet modification and cooking that can be applied to careers in healthcare.
At each meeting, the club chooses a disease to investigate, and members then work together to understand the condition and develop recipes to test that potentially could be used to help prevent or manage it.
The club’s treasurer, Victor Frolenko, an undergraduate student in nutritional sciences and Spanish with a minor in neuroscience, led the process of applying for the group SEN Grant to support the mission of the club and offer soup kitchen events to students in need.
“Our club relies on the ability to purchase ingredients for us to try our recipes, and while we do have a membership fee, it’s not enough to cover the cost of ingredients,” Frolenko said. “Instead of raising the club membership fee or putting the burden of buying ingredients on our members, we decided to apply for this grant as a group to support our learning through cooking experience and introduce new opportunities like guest speakers and hosting soup kitchens.”
Application for the SEN Grant includes detailing how the funds will be used to support student engagement and learning opportunities and letters of recommendation written in support of the group and its efforts.
“A part of the funds provided by the grant will be used to host soup kitchens for students in need like the one we held recently at Abba Java Coffeehouse,” said Julia Nagel, president of the Culinary Medicine club. “This was the first charity event our club has ever participated in, and it was a fulfilling experience to use our passion for nutrition and cooking to benefit college students who may be food insecure.”
Club members said they are excited to continue offering outreach events to those in need as well as expand member participation and the types of recipes they can develop through the access to quality ingredients this grant will supply.
“Before the grant, we were having trouble with being able to afford enough ingredients to allow all members to cook and try the foods we would make,” Frolenko said. “It’s been exciting to have everyone test the recipes and now incorporate ingredients like medicinal herbs that we were unable to try before due to cost.”
As the adviser of the club, Meengs commended the students who applied for the SEN Grant and worked together to organize the soup kitchen and guest chef events for the club.
“This is a fairly young club, as this is only the third year since it started and it's exciting to see how far the current leadership team has taken it,” said Meengs. “The students learn so much from the interactive experience of cooking these healthy foods together and from using what they learn to support the community. I can't wait to see how they will use the grant to further support opportunities for the members.”
Follow the Culinary Medicine Club on Instagram to learn more about their mission and events.