Ever wonder what a rock band eats before a big show?
When the hugely popular Dave Matthews Band drops into Saratoga for sellout performances Friday and Saturday, two of Union’s student environmental leaders will get the behind-the-scenes lowdown on the chow line for the pre and post-concert spreads.
The students have been tapped to haul away the band’s food waste and leftovers, and to bring them back to campus to be composted. For several years, Dining Services and Facilities have composted food scraps collected across campus. The scraps are dropped into an Earth Tub in West College Dining Hall and the compost is then used as organic fertilizer for Union’s grounds.
DMB has long been a proponent of environmental responsibility, so when representatives for the band were scouting around for a way to compost the food waste and leftovers, they turned to the College.
“We’re one of the few colleges around here who do this sort of thing,” said Dan Detora, director of Dining Services.
Detora will drive a department van to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and park it there for the two shows. Jill Falchi ‘10 and Erin Delman ’12 will collect the food waste before it is transported to West to be composted. Falchi is the winner of this year’s Frank Bailey Prize, awarded to the senior who has rendered the greatest service to the College in any field, primarily for her sustainability efforts. Delman recently was named a 2010 Udall Scholar, a prestigious national award that recognizes student leadership in environmental, health care or tribal public policy issues.
In return for their work, both students will get passes for the shows.
“This is a pretty cool opportunity,” said Delman. “Dave Matthews is a spectacular musician, and it should be a great show. But I’m really excited Union is being recognized for its composting efforts.”
Falchi and Delman are likely to bump into some fellow Union students at SPAC. A number of them, mostly from Ozone House, are volunteers for another DMB sustainability effort: reducing disposable bottled water waste.