CoFed’s thrilled to end 2010 and step into the new year with a fresh wave of major national media attention. In addition to getting featured on the CommonDreams.org newswire, this Sunday KPFA radio aired an excellent interview with co-founder Yoni Landau during their prime-time evening broadcast.

On December 30th, one of America’s leading progressive media portals — CommonDreams.org — picked up on CoFed’s national launch announcement and featured us on their daily newswire.  Then on Sunday, January 2nd, Berkeley’s Pacifica radio station KPFA 94.1 aired an excellent 3-minute interview with CoFed co-founder Yonatan Landau during their evening news!

Along with this burst in media, CoFed also started to see an increase in inquiries from students and faculty members interested in bringing the food sustainability revolution to their campuses. For example, we heard from one athletic director at a large university in the Southeast who said, “There are so many wonderful farmers in the area with absolutely delicious food, but the students have no idea they exist. The need for local, sustainable food is vital to the long-term health and well-being of our student body. What is the best way to connect these two groups?”

Answering crucial questions like that — while working to inspire, train and empower students to realize the importance of local, sustainable food and their ability to be leaders in bringing it to campus — is the reason why CoFed exists. Although the challenges are great, at times it may just take one group of committed students to bring about a transformation in campus food culture. CoFed’s regional organizers and national staff are gearing up to do all we can to identify, educate, connect and support those student leaders who want to be part of the solution!

CoFed will soon be issuing a new manual to help students and faculty understand all that we’ve learned about how to establish a sustainable food co-op or cafe on campus, and our first national training for student leaders is happening from January 10th to 20th, 2011. If you too would like to get involved with supporting this mobilization, please contact us and consider making a donation to help CoFed build our ground-breaking “real food” — local, sustainable, ethical and nutritious — cooperative movement to provide real students with extraordinary food!