‘Scraping Stations’ Foster Mindfulness At Ursuline

Story and Photos By Beth Donze, Clarion Herald
Photo | COURTESY URSULINE ACADEMY

The problem came into focus last summer, when members of Ursuline Academy’s service immersion group asked their school’s dining services director to suggest changes he wanted to see in the cafeteria in the 2019-20 school year.

The director, John Joffe, didn’t hold back: Joffe told the group that he and his staff were shocked by the amount of food Ursuline students were mindlessly throwing away at lunch.

Joffe said it was a source of daily bewilderment to see students in grades 4-12 – who serve themselves in the cafeteria’s self-serve, buffet-style set-up – piling too much food onto their plates and then discarding the inevitable excess.

Moreover, as students were tipping their uneaten food and other waste into industrial-size garbage cans, Joffe said many were inadvertently throwing away metal utensils – and even the odd Melamine bowl or plate – costing the cafeteria budget thousands of dollars in replacement costs each year.

Diners required to sort waste

The tide has turned dramatically since the eye-opening meeting, thanks to a simple yet thoughtful solution: Students in grades K-12 now dispose of their lunchtime waste by dividing it into a series of tubs set up at four “scraping stations” scattered across the cafeteria.

There are separate tubs for dirty cups, plates, bowls and utensils, as well as tubs earmarked for “food waste” and “non-food waste” – items such as napkins, cracker wrappers and butter containers.

“For the first time, the kids were able to see, when they scraped their plates, how much food they were throwing away,” said Beth Joubert, campus minister and service immersion leader. “We saw a difference from the very first day (of the new sorting system). It was instantaneous! The cafeteria staff noticed that they weren’t piling up the food like they used to!”

This new spirit of mindfulness has also paid off in real money, with budget savings of at least $7,000 in fall 2019 alone, Joffe reports.

No more single-use cups

The scraping stations are just the latest of Ursuline’s student-driven initiatives to make its State Street campus less wasteful. Last school year, when Key Club members observed that high school students alone were throwing away more than 500 plastic water cups every two days, they began selling reusable Tervis tumblers that faculty and students could take to and from campus and wash at home.

Joffe and his staff from SAGE Dining Services followed suit, ending the cafeteria’s use of disposable beverage cups and providing reusable, heavy-duty plastic cups for water and juice. Joffe said this change alone nets a weekly savings of $300 – the amount previously spent on disposable cups.

Last spring, this “Water Cup Initiative” drew praise from New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Councilman Joe Giarrusso during a campus visit, earning Ursuline a proclamation from the City Council.

Less is more

A mission trip to a West Virginia farm last summer, coordinated by Ursuline’s service immersion program “Beyond Our Borders,” also bolstered the school’s determination to become greener through small steps – and also helped spark the idea for the scraping stations, Joubert said.

In addition to doing service work at the farm and in the surrounding community, eight Ursuline students, accompanied by Joubert and Sue Heidel, the high school’s dean of students, learned the value of living more simply by turning off lights, fasting from electricity for a full night and conserving water by taking shorter showers and turning off the faucet during teeth-brushing.

At mealtime “you would literally have to scrape your plate and they wouldn’t put (the scraps) in the trash – they would put it in the compost. Everything was recycled,” Joubert said. “It made us realize how much we were putting on our plates and how much we were scraping off. When (our mission group) came back to New Orleans, we said, ‘Y’all, we have to do something at school!’”

When members of the service immersion group, led by junior Riley Talbot, brought the scraping station idea to teachers during their summer orientation, the room burst into applause, Joubert said.

‘Smart’ water fountains

Other “green” measures at Ursuline’s campus include the installation of three water fountains that give a digital tally of how many single-use bottles are being saved each time a user refills her Tervis tumbler. At open house, rather than being offered single-use water bottles, attendees refilled reusable Ursuline-themed cups at spa-style water dispensers.

Yet another “baby step” is visible inside Ursuline’s bathrooms: images of trees are posted near the paper towels, as powerful reminders of their origin.

Other benefits of going green

Ursuline art teacher Maureen Cremaldi said the campus tweaks are not only good for the environment, but also foster care for others. For example, while the scraping stations certainly save resources and money, they also lighten the garbage load on kitchen staff, pre-sort the cafeteria’s dishware for easier dishwashing and teach personal responsibility.

“It’s the idea of humanity and respect,” Cremaldi said. “You’re cleaning up after yourself. You’re not just slopping off the work to someone else.”

Ursuline is eager to help other schools brainstorm ways to reduce campus waste and raise awareness of the Catholic social teaching of care for God’s creation. Inquiries may be emailed  to Elizabeth “Beth” Joubert at ejoubert@uanola.org.

Beth Donze can be reached at bdonze@clarionherald.org.