By: Diana Nambo
For most college students, a day’s diet consists of coffee, a bagel and a frozen dinner. For many, there’s no such thing as a Sunday dinner.
Bellarmine’s Office of Identity and Inclusion Director Dr. Emily Howard and Assistant Director Daeja Robinson established Soul Food Sundays at Bellarmine with the hope of reinforcing the bond students may lack while being away from home.
Soul Food Sundays are gatherings of Bellarmine students and staff where foods from different cultures are shared. These free meals are open to everyone and take place monthly in the OII.
Every Soul Food Sunday offers a different menu, depending on the culture being explored. Students and staff are welcome to bring in food that represents the chosen culture. Finger foods and treats are also provided. Bringing food is welcomed but not required.
Robinson said, “There is a lot of traditions, holidays, and celebrations that are surrounded around food, and so we thought this would be an opportunity to bring different people together.”
Bellarmine sisters and regular Soul Food Sunday attendees, Aniseya and Andreya White, said they appreciate these meals.
Aniseya said: “Sunday dinner are always the most important dinners out of the entire week, and so being away from home and in a college university we kind of miss out on that a lot. But then a lot of that is replaced with Soul Food Sunday, like the sense of community, the sense of fellowship, the good food. You’re around people that you love.”
Andreya said the meals remind her of home.
“Coming from a family of color, we always, always eat soul food, and you don’t really get a lot of the soul food at predominantly white institutions, so it’s nice to be able to come together with other college kids of color and just bond and eat food that we can all connect to,” she said.
The Bellarmine's OII during the last Soul Food Sunday dinner of 2022 with an All-American theme. Photo courtesy of @bu_oii on Instagram.
For more information, visit the events page on the Engage website. https://engage.bellarmine.edu/
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