A Bumper Crop of Benefits:

MEM Student Amy Calhoun Offers Fellow Students Healthy Fare and a Chance to Support Internships

by Candice Mitchell

Master of Environmental Management (MEM) student Amy Calhoun started selling locally grown organic fruits and vegetables in the lobby of Hug Commons in 2007 for two simple reasons. “I wanted to support local agriculture, and give students access to healthier produce on a student’s budget,” she says. “Organic produce is not readily available in Durham, and when it is available it’s expensive.” (Hug Commons is in the Levine Science Research Center at Duke, main home of the Nicholas School.)

Calhoun’s weekly sales of squash, kale, onions, sweet potatoes and other delectable edibles achieved her aims—and more. Proceeds from her makeshift farmer’s market also helped support educational opportunities for her fellow students through the Nicholas School’s Environmental Internship Fund (EIF).

EIF is a student-led initiative that raises money to help support underfunded or unfunded internships. This year, it awarded $8,000 to five MEM students.

“EIF is a wonderful way for students to help other students, while developing their own entrepreneurial and managerial skills,” says Karen Kirchof, assistant dean of career services. Students develop and implement all EIF fundraising activities, from brainstorming the ideas to promoting and staffing them. Few of the ideas have been as fresh, or as fruitful, as Calhoun’s.

“Amy’s produce sales have been well received by students, faculty and staff alike,” Kirchof says. “She’s made it convenient for us to buy local organic produce without having to drive across town to find it.”

Calhoun is pursuing an MEM degree in environmental economics and policy. Opening the produce stand, she says, was a way to meld her entrepreneurial instincts with her passion for organic farming and local agriculture.

“I looked around and saw it wasn’t out there, so I created an opportunity,” she says. “It’s fun to be engaged and know that what you’re doing helps other students as well as supporting the farmer down the road who grew your food.”

Candice Mitchell, a May 2008 graduate of North Carolina Central University, was the Nicholas School’s summer communications intern.