 Hello, and welcome to this Fairfield University Innovative Research Symposium Spotlight. I'm Dr. Joel Beatty, and today I have the pleasure of introducing Katie Mullen. Over the past spring semester, Katie, along with students of the multimedia writing class, which is a professional writing course in the English department, and myself, we've been working on the Green Village Initiative eCookbook as part of a collaboration between the Center for Social Impact, the Community Engaged Research Team, and GVI. Thanks for joining us today, and Katie, welcome. Hello, everyone. My name is Catherine Mullen. I'm a senior communication major at Fairfield University, and I am extremely excited today to be able to presenting to you guys at the Innovative Research Symposium. As Dr. Beatty said, I had the opportunity to work on the Green Village Initiative eCookbook. So this project, as Dr. Beatty talked about, is in collaboration with Fairfield University Center of Social Impact, in collaboration with the Green Village Initiative, who's a nonprofit working right next door in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and I had the opportunity to join this project because I was in Dr. Beatty's class, multimedia writing. So just a little bit about the project. Within the project, we had the opportunity to work through recipes given to us by GVI members. We've had the opportunity to interview these members, and then from those interviews, we were able to create full 10-page articles from these amazing farmers and create it into a multimedia book with interactive recipes, profiles, photos, audio clips, into something that we're really proud of. So how did this process get started? Well, it all began when I decided to take a multimedia writing class, and I had no idea what I was getting into. The description of the class said that we would be learning how to use different Adobe platforms, such as Adobe InDesign, Adobe Lightroom, learning how to use garage band for audio clips, and this really excited me because I want to go into a career with media. So the first day, we were introduced to a bunch of new platforms, and Dr. Beatty suggested this project for the GVI Green Village Initiative e-cookbook. So in order to start out this project, we didn't have any experience with food in this class when it came to food and culture integrated with media. So we did our research. We started out with a research project researching about food within cultures of our own, within cultures in the surrounding area, and then from there we jumped into the history and mission of GVI, understanding whose story are we going to be telling and what's important to them as an urban farming community. From there, Dr. Beatty conducted a bunch of interviews with a bunch of the GVI members, and from those interviews, us as a class, we're able to pull quotes, both audio and written quotes, to be able to integrate into our project. And through these quotes, we are able to create awesome little audio buttons where when you're interacting with the book, you can click that button, and you can actually hear the people that we've interviewed talk themselves. So it really brings the book to life and knowing that there are people behind these stories. Going off of that storytelling was really important to us when we were conducting these interviews as well as writing this cookbook because we wanted to make sure that we were telling their stories with integrity. From there, we wanted to create a vision board, understanding the way it visually. We wanted the cookbook to look and the feel. We wanted to make sure that it was easy to use, of course, so that everyone has the opportunity to use it. And then we started to execute this plan by learning how to edit photos in InDesign, learning how to edit photos in Lightroom, and placing things in ways to make sure that the feel of the project was something that we were really proud of. And then we got into the editing phase. I was the project manager for my part of the project, and we had the opportunity to make this book into something that is really special to us all. So with my experience with GVI, this wasn't my first experience with the service learning class. Even though multimedia writing isn't considered a service learning class, I would definitely qualify under that name, specifically because we got to work with a non-profit within the Fairfield area, Fairfield and Bridgeport area, and we got to help tell their story, help respect their history, and make this project into something a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. We got to experience with a lot of different mediums, with audio, with visuals, with learning how to make a flow of an e-cookbook, something that I never thought I would be a part of, but I'm so incredibly happy that I have been. And also storytelling with integrity, making sure that the stories that we are telling are being told in the right way. And that is currently the conclusion of our presentation. Dr. Beatty, do you have any questions? Yeah, that was an excellent synopsis of a very complicated organic process over the course of the semester. Thank you. I'm happy that you're representing this research. So yeah, I just had a few questions. At the beginning of our class, we discussed a lot in our readings, we discussed a lot about the concepts of food deserts and food justice and access to food. But after working with the GVI interviews and getting to know its community, how does this change your perspective and understanding of some of those critical issues in food studies? That's a great question. Through this class, I definitely had the opportunity to research topics about food and food deserts, the idea of using food as a point of pride within these communities, something that I hadn't really experienced throughout my entire life before this point. And I thought that we had the opportunity to start having these important conversations before the rest of the country started having them. During this pandemic, the idea of food deserts is extremely important and is at the front of a lot of people's minds right now, thinking about the people that don't have access to food as easily as a lot of us do to walk down the street to a supermarket. So I feel like as a class and with your help, we were able to think of these really important issues before a lot of the country was thinking about it. Yeah, that's a great point. This pandemic sort of took over our thinking as we were working on this project. And it placed a real kind of heightened importance on some of those main themes in the book that we were already working with. So how can you see this current situation maybe shaping the future of this book or the outcome of this project? I think that with this pandemic, it only highlights the issue more, that the importance of urban farming and the work that GVI is doing, it's more important than ever because the access to food and the access to food, specifically within these food deserts, is something that should be on the top of everyone's mind. And the work that GVI is doing is extremely important. So my hope is that with this e-cookbook we're getting out the importance of eating fresh food and being able to do it in your own backyard in an urban setting. Yeah, and yeah, it's really, it's an amazing process. We started out with abstract concepts of food and knowledge and community. But then we started working with these interviews of the garden captains and we saw how the knowledge and experience are what bond this community together. So my question to you is, how did these meanings of food and knowledge and community and culture kind of change? And how did it make our understanding of the GVI community change? What's amazing about these interviews was I actually never had the opportunity to meet anyone from GVI, but I feel like I already know them because of these interviews. I had the opportunity to hear their life story, how they got involved with the organization. I got to hear them talk about their most important recipe to them. And I think that tells a lot about the leaders of GVI and the passion that they have for this project and the passion that they have for the community. So it really changed my outlook on, I feel like I've been missing out all these years. I wish I got involved sooner. Yeah, and I guess I look at this project as digital storytelling in a way. Exactly. So what kind of knowledge from this community do you think the rest of the world could use at this moment? I think you can look at GVI's community and look at how they view community and how they are able to bond through good food and wholesome food and being able to rise above what's going on outside our doors. I know a lot of us are inside right now and it can be a very scary time for a lot of different people, but it's clear that GVI is a warm and wholesome organization that truly wants everyone to succeed. And I think that's something that our society should really take a cue from. All right. Well, in closing, I just wanna thank you so much for contributing your work and your passion to this project. And so I wanna thank Katie on behalf of Fairfield University and the professional writing program and the English department and the Center for Social Impact. And I'd like to thank you all for watching. Thank you. Thank you.