Spiritual Life @ Bucknell

Oluwasefunmi Oluwafemi ’25

To: Family and Friends 

I hope this letter finds you well. Many of us went through a whirlwind of emotions during the trip—from our landing with The Black Church Food Security Network to our lobbying on Capitol Hill with Bread for America, and all the way to our final moments in our Airbnb, where we spent most of our time in community with each other. In these moments, we felt hope, powerlessness, and restoration. 

On Thursday, March 13, 2025, the cohort traversed through Baltimore again—visiting our folks at the Baltimore City Office of Food Policy and Planning and the Beth Am Synagogue. In our first venture, we were educated about how Baltimore City’s Food Policy and Planning team works together to provide more accessible ways to integrate SNAP benefits across farmers’ markets, grocery stores, and online markets. This discussion was extremely inspiring for me as a Baltimore City resident, as much of my childhood meals were funded by government assistance. To see the emphasis of this work centered not only on making benefits more accessible through projects like B-More Fresh and Food is Medicine, but also on nutrition education and community involvement, truly touched my heart. 

Continue reading “The Start of Something New “

Dora Kreitzer ’25

This course has 3.5 core questions: Why are people food insecure in 2025? How are communities responding? Where do we fit? And our half question: what gives you hope? The reason it’s a half, as Kurt explained in one of our early sessions, is that we’re not sure hope is the right word or feeling to be focusing on in this landscape. But then this week, hope was a big point of discussion with many of our partners, especially in terms of how they are feeling about this political moment. 

It started with Reverend Heber Brown, who shared that despite the chaos coming from Washington D.C., he feels optimistic. He has studied historical movements, knows that communities have responded and come together to surmount oppressive challenges in the past, and sees that network and his role in it today. Dr. Brown also talked about one of the goals of this current administration being to make people feel discouraged and despair; whether or not policies are actually imposed doesn’t seem to matter as just making headlines that make people feel the situation is hopeless. Optimism, therefore, is an act of resistance. Dr. Brown isn’t ignorantly hopeful, sticking his head in the sand and hoping that when he lifts it back up things will be okay. To face contemporary challenges head on, to build community, to see new networks growing and food distribution systems changing, and to see patterns and cycles of history showing how people push back all give him reason to be hopeful. Dr. Brown proved to me that one can engage with all of the political volatility of this moment, and still be optimistic about our country and about the future, because he is finding community and taking action which shows that efforts are still worth it. 

Continue reading “Optimism as Resistance”

Keeler Thomas ’25

Our final day brought more partnership meetings stirring our study of food insecurity’s grasp on Baltimore residents and responses to this problem. After lobbying in D.C. the previous day, our kickoff event was an early meeting with the Baltimore City Food Policy and Planning team. This team, being integral to the analysis of, education on, and combat of food insecurity in Baltimore at the local governmental level, was strikingly small. But do not let the size of the wave determine its power, for Taylor, Lindsay, Yewande, Najahla, and Amber were themselves capable and invested individuals collaborating on a sea of initiatives, including, but not limited to, an online SNAP program called B’More Fresh Produce Incentive, providing additional money for those eligible and using SNAP benefits through an online portal, and a targeted patient care program called Food Rx that supports the patient and their family through tailored and nutritional meals.

Continue reading “Partnership and Persistence”

Julia Daly ‘28

When I first found out that I had the opportunity to participate in the Food, Faith, Justice course on campus, I felt a jolt of excitement. I was ecstatic to be able to further my education on the topic of food insecurity and be able to participate in the service learning journey and community that FFJ creates. Spending the beginning of the second semester preparing for our journey to Baltimore helped to expand my knowledge on the topic of food insecurity as a result of fundamental structural issues present throughout the United States, especially the results and effects of redlining. Although learning about Baltimore’s growing food insecurity holds importance in the aspect of spreading awareness, the service experiences that I have been presented with this spring break were the takeaways I was most looking forward to receiving. 

Continue reading ” Food, Faith, Justice takes on Washington D.C. “

Jaiden Myers ’28

While in Baltimore, our group has been blessed with the opportunity to experience how organizations at different levels attack the issue of Food Insecurity. So far the things that we have been able to partake in have included working with the Black Church Food Security Network, going to Liberty Grace Church, learning about Temple X schools, serving for Our Daily Bread, observing the Islamic Society of Baltimore, and working at the Strength to Love Farm as previously mentioned by others who have this great opportunity to do this work. To this point we have seen work that has been done at an individual level, as well as at the faith level which has been truly fascinating. 

Heading to Washington, D.C., was the next stop on our food insecurity voyage, and coming here definitely demonstrates a whole new level of attacking food insecurity. The entire day revolved around food insecurity at the institutional/systemic level.

Continue reading “From the ‘Nell to the Capitol”

Jevin Lauver ’26,

Strength to Love II Farm is not the kind of farm I’m used to seeing. There are no sprawling hills and fields, nor livestock, nor creeks running through the grounds. It’s a series of rows of crops contained inside of several hoop-houses, which function like greenhouses and maintain humidity inside of their tarp coverings. 

Together, our group helped weed out one of the hoop-houses in order to prepare it for planting. Everybody was very optimistic about the experience and I appreciated our group’s dedication to the work. 

I particularly enjoyed our meeting with Baltimore farmer, photographer, and author Shae McCoy, who works at the farm we visited. Her insight on how communities develop and her own role at both the farm and in Baltimore as a whole was interesting to listen to. 

Continue reading “Strength to Love”

Shaheryar Asghar ’28

Yesterday felt different; it was a day where coming to Baltimore no longer felt like an adjustment — it had settled in. The drive to Our Daily Bread wasn’t filled with curiosity or uncertainty anymore; instead, it was a quiet reflection on how this place, and the people who have made it meaningful, had started to feel like a system — familiar and personal. The idea of how change becomes comfort weighed on my mind throughout the journey. I kept wondering: how does a new setting, initially foreign, become home? How do the people we encounter transform an experience from obligation to belonging?

In these few days, a quiet bond had emerged — no longer the cautious dynamic of people thrown together by circumstance, but something deeper. It felt like we were no longer just participants in a shared project; we were part of a shared story. Yesterday, I found myself questioning why I was on this trip — not just the purpose of the work itself, but why I was here with these particular people. And somewhere in that question lay the answer.

As we approached Our Daily Bread, Jaiden’s smile stood out to me. His eagerness to be there wasn’t fueled by obligation but by a quiet, internal motivation. That genuine drive reminded me why we were all there — not because we had to be, but because we wanted to be. Inside, Dora’s excitement was equally infectious. The warmth in her voice as she recounted her previous experiences inspired all of us. It was as if she carried a quiet light, guiding the rest of us forward.

Our first task was simple — tying tea bags in bundles of ten. I found myself next to Rose, working in shared silence. But that silence wasn’t empty; it was heavy with meaning. Her quiet focus and care for such a small task reminded me that inspiration isn’t something external — it’s carried within us.

Before the doors opened, we were assigned our roles. Each task — serving, cleaning, assisting — carried its own quiet beauty. It wasn’t just about the job itself but the shared process of doing it together. For a moment, I stepped back and wondered why it was us — these specific thirteen people — standing together in that room. It felt intentional, as though we had been woven into the same story for a reason.

Continue reading “A Journey Toward Belonging”

Rose Nyounway ’27, 3.10.25

I chose the Food, Faith, and Justice course because I wanted to explore my faith and understand the impact of social justice through an interfaith lens. Coming to Baltimore, I had high and fixed “expectations”, especially on attending a Black Church. I longed for the sense of belonging, warmth and community that I had experienced growing up in a Christian family back in West Africa. My Sunday mornings were filled with joyful chaos of preparation that led to long 3 hours service which concluded or began with me getting warm hugs and embraces from church mothers and grandmothers.

This expectation was created and affirmed after Barbara, another student who has taken this course, consistently shared with me how a hug she got at the Liberty Grace Church of God felt just like a grandmother’s hug where she got the feeling of familiarity, home, assurance and a sense of belonging. I was eager and I longed for that same experience. I imagined walking into the church and feeling instantly at home after I had gotten the hug Barbara described. But after embracing several people, I realized that I had confined myself to nostalgia, searching for something familiar instead of embracing the richness of the new experience that I was in. After a short retrospection, I let go of my expectations and opened my heart to the depth of the Black Church, without trying to see it through the lens of what I expected it to be.

Continue reading “Beyond Belonging”

Jazmin Burdette ’28, 3.9.25

During the duration of this class, I’ve learned a lot about myself, the world around me, and the world where I grew up. 

I had never really questioned where my food came from before attending Bucknell, being from California I knew it was more local than imported and that the food was almost always fresh, no matter the season. Who knew moving across the country can cause your perspective to change? This question started to be asked in my first semester of college, wherein I was in the Residential College program and I took a class called Sustainable Harvest. This class inspired me to try to pursue a minor in food systems, and it introduced me to this course. 

Read more: In Abundance, and Frequently

Food, Faith, and Justice has been one of my favorite classes at Bucknell. Although I am still a first year so there’s more time for other classes to take that place, I think it’ll be a hard class to top. It’s really made me question where food comes from, where does it go, and who benefits the most from its creation. Food has always been integral to my culture and personal beliefs, I view it as sacred and a communal activity. Eating alone is something I only do for breakfast, as I fortify myself for the day ahead. Learning about systemic racism and redlining is always troubling, as it can lead to feeling trapped in a system that’s stacked against “us” (that is, BIPOC). But I believe that learning about issues is the only way to truly understand and fix them. 

During our conversation with Pastor Brown, he dropped diamonds like the planet Neptune, in abundance and frequently. Two of the phrases that stuck with me were “Focus is fruit” and “Critique what is, create what isn’t.” I’ve recently been restructuring my focus in life and priorities, doing my best to live in a way that aligns with my faith and that will help me achieve what I’ve been called to do- medicine. I hope to create a learning environment in my community focused on the importance of nutrition and the effects it has on health and get to the root of the cause of the many health issues in America today that relate to diet.