Students gathered outside of Anderson Center during Thursday’s lunch hour to protest Aramark, Hamline’s dining service provider, and their use of prison labor through the In2Work program. The protest aimed to raise awareness about Aramark’s prison labor practices as the end of Hamline’s contract with Aramark draws near.
Feed Your Brain (FYB) is a student organization that advocates for food equity at Hamline. They organized the protest and provided free catering from Black Sea — a Mediterranean restaurant in Hamline-Midway — as an alternative to the dining hall food, while gathering signatures for a petition calling for Hamline’s contract with Aramark to not be renewed this July.
“We want students to make their voice heard, to pressure Hamline not to renew the contract [with Aramark],” sophomore Matthew Maroney, a FYB leader said. “To make sure everyone is aware that this is something that we as students have a voice and have a say on, that our opinion matters, that the food we eat matters. That the human misery created in producing that food matters, and it would be better if we had food that no human misery was involved in creating.”
Through the In2Work program, Aramark continues to profit on the labor and contracts with food service in prisons. Aside from that connection, The Oracle was not able to confirm that there is a direct relationship between prison labor and the food served in Hamline’s dining hall.
Hamline’s contract with Aramark ends in July 2024, and with the Request For Proposals (RFP) process already underway, Hamline students, specifically FYB, hope that the continuous pressure against Aramark will be a determining factor in the search for a new contract.
The FYB petition gathered 140 signatures from Hamline community members and the overall turnout and support for the protest was encouraging for the student organizers. FYB member Kaitlynn Fuller hopes that a physical representation of the community’s disapproval of Aramark will be effective in the contract renewal decisions moving forward.
“I think it was good to get the signatures and have physical proof, because as students we hear the discussions going on about how people aren’t happy with [Aramark], but when you have that paper, and you have all these people that are all physically there and show that they care, it feels more impactful,” Fuller said.
Fuller thought that the precedent of three Hamline University Student Congress (HUSC) resolutions gave attendees more context for how long the students of Hamline have not been heard in expunging Aramark.
“I think [the HUSC resolutions] gave people more of an idea that, like, this isn’t like a new thing that just came out of nowhere,” Fuller said. “It’s been going on for a long time and nothing continues to be done.”
The entirety of the impact of FYB’s protest is yet to be determined, but the members of the group feel that they made an impression on the company as they noticed the dining hall’s reaction to the protest. This included the opening of the Piper Grill, which had been closed this semester and the majority of last school year, and which was closed again on Friday following the protest.
“[The grill being open] was weird, and also the display they had during lunch,” Fuller said. “They had a display that said ‘today’s menu’ with plates of what they were serving.”
The students also noted the presence of Aramark representatives on campus, who engaged with the FYB students before the protest, asking them for their sources that they based their opinions and protest on.
“It has never become clear to me why Holly [Monticello] was on campus, today, the Aramark corporate representative. I don’t know if she was made aware of the protest, if she was here to try to combat that,” Maroney said. “It’s odd to me that Holly has shown up for the second time on campus, and it happens to be the day that we’re holding our protest.”
FYB leader AJ Escalante has noted the reaction from the company as confirmation that their work is making an impact.
“The extent of [Aramark’s] reactions to what we’ve been doing is a way for people to see that what we’re doing matters. There is some impact that we can have,” Escalante said.