After the Hamline African Student Association (HASA) held their annual Pamoja Night this last October, sophomore Farhiya Ali raised her concerns about the food that they were able to provide. Ali is an active member of HUSC and the treasurer for HASA.

Every year Pamoja Night is the biggest event for HASA. Pamoja means “together” in Swahili, so at the event everyone gets together and explores the difference in African people, cultures, values and identities through food and performances.

To get funding for the catering, HASA needed to find an Aramark and Hamline approved local restaurant. Since Fasika was taken off of the list of approved catering they found it difficult to find a restaurant that served traditional African cuisine at an affordable price. The two options for this ethnicity of food were Afro Deli and Holy Land, both of which were out of their budgets to provide the traditional meals that they would have liked to served.

Left with so few options, mostly limited to East African or Middle Eastern food, many felt like there wasn’t enough being provided for Multicultural Alliance (MA) organizations without a lot of extra effort being put in.

“I think there are a lot of hoops that MA orgs have to jump through, and it’s just frustrating,” Ali said. “We want to see a change, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we want to see a change.”

Ali, with the support of others, brought this dilemma to light at a HUSC general assembly during the concerns and rumors section. Ali wants there to be a more diverse section of affordable food options available to be able to fully celebrate her culture on campus and for Pamoja Night to really celebrate and show the differences in African cultures.

“This is how I feel not only as a student who wants to celebrate my culture on campus by sharing my food, and with so many restriction it limits what I can share.” Ali said.

Ali wants a student representative to work with Hamline and Aramark while creating this list to be the voice of the different Hamline multicultural organizations.

Dean Alan Sickbert agrees that their should be a process in place to help students reach out to restaurants that would meet their needs, but because not all restaurants have or turn in their food handling and insurance licenses, the problem lies in part, with the restaurants themselves. Catering also comes with costs, Sickbert noted.

“The reality is one of the things they complain about is that Aramark is too expensive, and now they are complaining that the vendors are too expensive. Now what I think students are realizing is that there are extra expenses no matter who provides the catering,” Sickbert said.

Students and student organizations can find a complete list of external approved caterers on Hamline’s website.