Res Life’s Comfort Food Project Connects RU to Home

There's just something about home cooking, right?

Whether it comes from a time-tested, hand-written index card or was pulled from the internet but made just so, almost everyone has a dish in their life that defines a time, a place, or a relationship.

This spring, the Office of Residence Life and Student Success is helping bring some of those favorites to the Rockhurst campus in a new initiative called the Comfort Food Project.

Jen Reid, Ph.D., associate vice president for student development, said University staff reached out to parents and caregivers for every student with a meal plan in the fall, asking them to share their student's favorite recipes. On an ongoing basis, Rockhurst dining staff will cook a selected recipe and serve it in the Thomas More Dining Room on campus (and share a recipe card).

"We got a pretty good response back," Reid said. "A lot of the people we emailed were really happy to share this and were excited."

It's more than just a nice thing to do. Reid said providing a taste of home - wherever that may be - helps reinforce the sense that the community at Rockhurst cares for them, too.

"Four to six weeks into a semester is when students start to experience homesickness," she said. "So the hope is something like this helps students experiencing that, but I think we are also fostering this notion with caregivers that we are here to care for your students, that we are partners in that."

Reid said Residence Life has found worthy collaborators in Rockhurst Dining Services (Chartwells), who insisted on meticulously recreating the dishes to the letter - though scaled up to feed hundreds of students, faculty and staff on a given day.

And it's worked. In early February, Will Sorotchy stepped into the Thomas More Dining Room and headed straight for the cashew chicken station. He said the email that the recipe would be made that day came as a nice surprise, he said.

"My mom makes this," said Sorotchy. "She's the best cook I know."

Reid said Residence Life are also working on a cookbook with the recipes for all members of the Rockhurst community to try some Hawks' homestyle dishes.