DINING IN
results. “As transient as any college community can be,
that’s what students really want. You can talk about
social justice all day long — and students really do
want that — but at the end of the day, what they really
want is community.”
David Baron, a junior from Atlanta, worked in Tan-
zania in 2008, teaching biointensive agriculture to
farmers marginalized by resource limitations. It helped
shape his idea to start a community garden, a partner-
ship of Carolina students and the town of Chapel Hill
to teach horticulture therapy and provide transitional
employment for homeless people in addition to pro-
viding space for them to grow their own food.
‘People have
been feeling
better and
more satisfied
Sheila Neal ’ 93
is the most basic connection between the environment
and the human condition,” Baron said. “ The way we
grow and harvest and distribute food brings in so many
issues of environmental sustainability, human health and
social status.”
HOPE was among more than 100 student-initiated
projects around the world to share a gift of more than
$1 million from philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis.
Health and economics
Local people who — like Ferris — are avidly inter-
ested in local food have a range of reasons.
Bill Dow, a former physician who grows and sells
some of those farmers’ market tomatoes — his sweet
little Sun Golds are a big hit with kids — began pro-
moting locally grown food out of concern for public
health, which he studied and then taught at Carolina in
the late ’70s and early ’80s. He believes farmers’ mar-
was raised. I don’t want to have to discuss my dinner. I
just want to eat it.”
Sheila Neal ’ 93, former manager of the midweek
Carrboro Farmers’ Market, now runs Neal’s Deli in
Carrboro with her husband, Matt Neal. Roughly half
the deli’s ingredients come from nearby farms, bakeries
and other suppliers, both because local food is “just bet-
ter” and because the couple believe in supporting other
local businesses. In recent years, she has seen a shift in
consciousness among local food consumers.
