Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of profiles of the Wisconsin Idea in action. See past profiles we have published.

See also: ‘Great Texts’ exposes high-schoolers to literature

On a rainy, cold Tuesday morning, the bright halls of the Goodman Community Center buzz with activity. Student volunteers load and unload donations for the center’s food pantry, a crucial service for Madison residents facing tough times.

Physical labor isn’t the only thing these student volunteers provide. As members of Rebecca Lorimer’s section of English 201, they gain valuable writing experience by researching food-related issues and writing about the food pantry for the Eastside News. The Writing Food Project creates texts about food and food-related issues.

UW–Madison student Michael Peterson stocks food supplies at the Goodman Community Food Pantry in Madison. Peterson is taking part in the Writing Food Project, which is a class taught by professor Rebecca Lorimer that provides support for local nonprofits and real-world writing opportunities for students.

Photo: Bryce Richter

Lorimer is one of 16 graduate students to receive a Humanities Exposed (HEX) grant. Now in its fifth year, each HEX project provides a mutually beneficial arrangement to both graduate research and community partners. Participants, whether students or community members, gain real-world experience and foster community. The results bridge differences of age, class and education.

“One of my personal and professional goals is to foster mutually productive university/community collaborations. The HEX program seemed like a perfect opportunity to further this goal while doing something fun and interesting with my class,” says Lorimer. “The organization, reflection and critique that I’ve found with HEX are all essential elements that help scholars to be mindful of their community work while being supported in making that work academic.”

The program began as the brainchild of Susanne Wofford, former professor of English and director of the Center for the Humanities. Noting the many service opportunities for undergraduates, Wofford wanted to connect graduate students, particularly those in the humanities, with members of the community.

“The university is resource-heavy, and we knew we could easily share these resources,” says Claire Allen, HEX program coordinator. “Programs like DELTA focus on the sciences, but in the humanities I don’t think it’s always as obvious to students, or to the public, exactly how their research can be applied to public needs. This is a big help.”

Each project brings diverse ideas together in different areas of the community. Musicology student Anya Holland-Barry travels to Madison East High School, where she works with a history class to integrate music into discussions of war, conflict and current events. English student Maria Bibbs facilitates a “safe space” writing workshop where individuals with HIV can write and process their experiences. Tessa Desmond, also an English student, assembles texts in both English and Spanish to promote community connections between conversation partners at Madison’s Quann Community Garden.

Allen, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, notes that the HEX Program is itself a collaboration between AmeriCorps and the university. Projects address a community need or consequence of poverty, supporting the underlying antipoverty mission of AmeriCorps.

“We also look for avenues for sustainability so projects could potentially be institutionalized and sustained,” says Allen. “Some projects have continuous streams of volunteers. Our prison writing workshop started out as a GED/high school equivalency diploma tutoring project at Oakhill Correctional Institution and was then taken on by two other scholars.”

A second-year Ph.D. student in composition and rhetoric, Lorimer had already engaged students in discussions of food and related issues when she decided to apply for a HEX grant. Teaching English 100 last year, she was struck by the timeliness of her students’ final paper topics: food stamp programs, nutrition and food education, food waste on campus, migrant farm labor and more.

“I started brainstorming ways students could write more publicly for authentic, living audiences who were already having these food conversations,” says Lorimer. “A HEX project seemed to be one of the most organized and fruitful ways to do this.”

Lorimer’s goals are similar to those of other projects, providing connections between players in a nearly cyclical way. Students connect university/classroom activities and writing genres to community/professional activities and genres; community organizations’ missions connect to larger audiences through new written materials; community organizations access university resources by connecting with students. In the end, she writes, “All participants further connect food as sustenance with food as cultural, economic and political force.”

These connections have paid off for her students and the organizations they assist. In addition to the Goodman Center group, one group interviews farmers to write farm profiles for Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition (MACSAC), while another writes press releases and other public relations materials for Troy Gardens to advocate for and bring attention to their education programs.

“To be clear the subject of the class is writing and rhetoric, and I’ve been interested in these subjects since I was a wide-eyed undergrad,” says Lorimer. “But food topics serve as a lens through which we look at how writing and arguments are working in the world.”

Back at the Goodman Center, students wave goodbye as they walk past a plaque with a James Beard quote: “Food is our common ground, our universal experience.” Center volunteer Robert Bluel sits back and offers up some French onion soup, made moments ago in the center’s kitchen.

“The students work, they go to school, so when they can spare an hour, even on a gray day like this, we really appreciate it,” says Bluel. “They say they’re sorry they’re only here for an hour, but we really get a kick out of it.”