The Northern Arizona University senior, who graduates in May\nwith a degree in environmental studies and sustainability, discovered purple\ncarrots, the emotional and cultural connections food creates and the importance\nof sharing good food with others during her four years in Flagstaff. Her\ninterest in food, though, doesn\u2019t stem from trying new restaurants or sampling\nnew dishes. It\u2019s all about food access, food insecurity and ensuring people in\nher community get enough to eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once she discovered this drive, it became the focus of her\nvolunteer work, her research and eventually her career plans. For the one-time\nart major, the shift was immediate\u2014it happened while doing homework for a\nwriting course required by the Honors College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI remember the moment clearly\u2014I was typing up a research\npaper on vegetarianism and it hit me\u2014food is an absolute necessity and this\nlife force controls and is controlled by people, policy, economics and the\nenvironment,\u201d Carney said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That epiphany led to changing her major, volunteering with\nFlagstaff Foodlink, where she now works, and applying the philosophy and theory\nshe learns in her classes to applicable ways to not only ensure people in the\ncommunity have enough food but to start a movement that reconsiders food\nsystems and the benefit of a strong local food system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my experience with Foodlink, I have gotten a taste of the power connection and inclusivity can have on a local food system and economy,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe that all people should have all access to foods\u2014foods that are emotionally, culturally and physically appropriate and accepted by the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While at NAU, Carney applied for and received a 1% for the Planet grant from Patagonia to fund the Flagstaff Fruit Tree Project, which is a community-led effort designed to put otherwise wasted fruit to use. The project connected volunteer pickers with fruit tree owners, who go to trees on private, public and commercial property to pick fruit, keeping what they want and donating the rest to local food banks and pantries. Before, this fruit often rotted on the tree or ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It came about after a bumper crop of fruit in 2018, Carney\nsaid. The Foodlink team saw the fruit on the trees and saw the food insecurity\nin their clients and they created a community gleaning project to harvest the\nunused fruit, diverting hundreds of pounds of fruit into people\u2019s homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not only does it help combat food insecurity by providing\nskills and knowledge, it supports community connections through the act of\nurban gleaning and gives people hands-on experience with their food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This wasn\u2019t all Carney made time for at NAU. She also\nenrolled in the Honors College\u2019s Grand Canyon Semester, which enables students\nto live on and study the Colorado Plateau, allowing the native Georgian to\nbuild an intimacy with the Southwest that she never imagined was possible.\nCarney had field study experiences in natural and social sciences, getting\nopportunities to engage with the land\u2019s history, both in natural and human\nterms. After she completed the course, she was hired as a recruiter of sorts to\nencourage other students to enroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMany call Grand Canyon Semester a once-in-a-lifetime\nexperience,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me, GCs was a first-in-a-lifetime experience. GCS\nreally served as a catalyst for experiential education in my life and totally\nreshaped my understanding of what higher education could and should be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But even in the classroom, Carney\u2019s experiences went above\nand beyond. She talked about her appreciation of the Socratic methods Honors College\nfaculty employ, pushing her to think deeply about her ideas and the ideas\npresented by those around her. She completed creative projects and signed up\nfor writing classes and worked closely with her professors, building those\nrelationships that helped her to succeed. Ted\nMartinez<\/strong>, who taught the Plants and People course that led to Carney\u2019s\ncareer switch, also supervised her work as a student and then program assistant\nfor the Grand Canyon Semester. She played a critical role in ensuring enough\nstudents signed up last year, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHer passion for learning really stands out,\u201d Martinez said.\n\u201cFrom the first class I had with her, she really had a passion for learning\nabout food, health, diet and food systems. That passion followed her to Grand\nCanyon semester. It\u2019s an immersive, multidisciplinary domestic study abroad\nwhere the Grand Canyon serves as the focal point to learn deeply about people,\nplace and culture. Molly was a leader among her peers in the GCS program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After commencement, Carney is enrolling in NAU\u2019s Sustainable\nCommunities graduate program; she hopes to use that to build on her\nundergraduate research experience and combine food analytics, political\necology, connectivity and art to produce an accessible series of maps that\nallow people to easily engage with this data in their community. She will\ncontinue to work with Flagstaff Foodlink as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"NAU](\"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/NAU_primary-281_3514-1-e1536853679171.png\")
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Heidi Toth | NAU Communications
(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"