Students from ETSU’s department of mass communication held a bull riding fundraising event on Thursday to benefit One Acre Café.
The internship program was started by mass communication department Chair Stephen Marshall.
Marshall connected a group six students with a local non-profit that required help with advertising and awareness.
Their client, One Acre Café, is a non-profit restaurant that addresses hunger and food insecurity in the community and is ran mostly on volunteer staff and donations.
“We’re trying to connect with the community as much as possible by doing more than just feeding people,” said Executive Director of One Acre Café Jan Orchard. “The homeless community gets a negative image all too often, and food insecurity is a real issue.
Orchard says they also have a second co-op program they are getting ready to launch where they will pay someone five days a week, five hours a day over the span of three months before helping them get a job in the community.
“As a non-profit, it’s not a matter of making money, but rather staying afloat,” Orchard said. “We have only been around for two years now, but we have developed several programs such as kids can eat free, a backpack fill up program, the co-op programs and so on.”
Besides One Acre Café, other internship groups worked with Second Harvest Food Bank and Bucky’s Food Pantry to bring awareness to hunger in the area.
Orchard encourages ETSU students to go to have a meal at the café and volunteer one hour of time for a meal made of fresh and local ingredients.
The menu varies daily, and customers can get various sizes of food in order to create affordable meals and cut down on waste.
Volunteers can walk-in and donate time or sign up on a schedule via the One Acre Website.
“I have volunteered there, and everyone is so nice,” said senior Mass Communication student Madison Malson. “The prices of the meals are great for what you get, and it’s really an unforgettable experience.”
Malson was a part of the internship program and says that the group before them came up with the BucHunger drive, but it was their job to plan and execute the event.
“Working with One Acre Café has given us a valuable experience on working with a client, especially a non-profit client,” Malson said. “We’re very happy with how everything has turned out, and while we had our bumps, we learned a lot from all of this.”
