Photo by Deb Gau SMSU students Bailey Gluth and Betty Mekuria use ice cream scoops to portion out the batter for a batch of strawberry muffins for the Mindful Meals program.

MARSHALL — A project to help make sure Marshall area families have nutritious food on the weekends has picked up steam.

This week, Southwest Minnesota State University students said the Mindful Meals pilot program has grown, with the help of student volunteers and community partners.

“This year, we worked on increasing our volunteer base,” said Valerie Messner, co-leader of Mindful Meals.

“We have people from all different departments, and they’re eager to learn,” said co-leader Jess Krueger.

On Thursday, student volunteers were in the SMSU culinology kitchens, preparing ingredients for bolognese sauce and baking strawberry muffins. They would be delivering a total of 94 meals to 19 families this weekend, Messner said.

Mindful Meals first started meal deliveries this spring. The program is continuing with meal deliveries planned for three weeks in November and December.

“The underlying focus of all this is education,” Messner said. Children do better at school if they’re getting enough nutritious food to eat, she said.

Mindful Meals’ goal is to help address food insecurity in a sustainable way, group leaders said. Student volunteers plan, prepare and deliver meals to children and families who may not have enough healthy food outside school. Mindful Meals is spearheaded by the SMSU Enactus group and the Student Association, said Dr. George Taylor, the Sam Walton Fellow/Faculty Advisor of Enactus. Enactus is a 501(c)(3), and oversees Mindful Meals.

The inspiration for Mindful Meals came from the Humanity Alliance, a nonprofit that rescues food that would otherwise be discarded, and uses it to prepare meals for Minnesota families.

This spring, Mindful Meals did three meal delivery runs, focusing on families of kindergarten and first grade students at Park Side Elementary. Messner said that part of the pilot program served almost 300 meals.

“It has certainly been a delight to work with SMSU,” said Park Side Principal Darci Love.

Park Side has helped to get the word out about Mindful Meals to the families of students, as well as sharing information on the school website.

Love said the program has been a good leadership opportunity for SMSU students. And at the same time, Park Side students and their families benefit from being able to get hot meals delivered to them, she said.

Taylor said it’s been exciting to see Mindful Meals grow, and to see the positive response the program has received.

“It’s amazing, when I go out into the community, how many people know about Mindful Meals,” he said.

Partnerships with area businesses and other groups at SMSU have made Mindful Meals’ work possible, Taylor said. The group has partnered with Christensen Farms, Hy-Vee, Aldi and the Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce, he said. Mindful Meals has also gotten support from the SMSU Foundation, and university departments like the environmental science and agronomy programs. Agronomy research plots offered a chance to grow produce that could be used to help make meals, Messner and Krueger said.

Messner and Krueger said Mindful Meals has also benefited from partnering with culinology and hospitality students. Krueger said they’ve been able to provide kitchen safety training and work on making meal preparation more efficient.

“It’s very helpful that Jess is onboard as co-leader,” Messner said.

Messner said Mindful Meals focused on expanding participation this fall — both in terms of volunteers and getting the word out about the program. Students have created a website, www.mindfulmealsmn.com, with online sign-ups for meal deliveries, and volunteer and partnership opportunities.

Krueger said the group also built on their meals, to help make them both fun and nutritious.

“We kind of added a dessert option for the meal,” with the strawberry muffins, she said. Krueger said the volunteers would be baking gluten-free versions of the muffins as well.

Messner and Krueger said they want to see Mindful Meals grow into a sustainable program. The group plans to have meal deliveries this coming spring, as well. They are working toward having meal deliveries every other week, they said.