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Food for Thought

  • Food for Thought
  • Scott Dean, left, of Farmer John, and Tom Nelson of Safeway pass out hot dogs and snacks to Neighborhood Academic Initiative families.
  • Photo/Eric Sullano

By Eddie North-Hager on April 23, 2009 2:45 PM

A group of high school students - members of the Neighborhood Academic Initiative, USC’s intensive college prep program - have their sights set a little higher than being a cashier at the local supermarket.

So they weren’t initially impressed when graduate students from the Food Industry Management Program at the USC Marshall School of Business talked to their class about careers.

“It is not just about bagging groceries,” said Frank Mota, a human resources manager for Bristol Farms, who recently graduated from the USC Marshall program. “These kids are more into technology - they’re not thinking of the food industry. But we have buyers, controllers, heads of sales departments. We didn’t know if they would want to listen to us, but they were very interested.”

The USC graduate students connected job opportunities to different types of majors the Neighborhood Academic Initiative youngsters were already considering, such as biology and chemistry, both of which are needed for food testing, safety and packaging.

The Food Industry Management program, which is comparable to an accelerated MBA for the grocery industry, is geared for up and comers in the supermarket business to learn the tools needed to achieve high performance. More than 20 grocery store managers from across the country graduated from the course in April.

The outreach to the 250 Neighborhood Academic Initiative students during Saturday classes was part of the management program’s volunteer day, an event that Mota hopes will become a tradition.

The neighborhood youngsters probably were hoping the same thing after they were treated to Dodger Dogs from the Farmer John mobile café.

“Right now they are thinking ‘ooh, hot dogs,’ ” said Kim Thomas Barrios, director of the Neighborhood Academic Initiative. “But the USC students widened their horizons and made them think about what they might consider doing.”

While the talk focused on the future, the USC graduate students also addressed immediate needs. Just a few blocks south of campus, more than 200 parents of Neighborhood Academic Initiative students were attending a Family Development Institute meeting. The workshop, part of the parents’ commitment to having their children participate in the initiative, covered topics such as financial aid and the necessary paperwork for their youngsters to go to college.

The USC graduate students surprised the parents with reusable grocery bags packed with staples, such as macaroni and cheese and peanut butter, as well as cookbooks.

“This helped reinforce in an immediate way how much USC cares about the neighborhood we live in,” Thomas Barrios said. “This gave them two meals.”

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