Amelie Sack ’27 is hungry to help people in Northern Michigan eat healthfully this summer through her internship at the Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities in Traverse City—a place that feels like home to her after growing up in Glen Arbor about a half-hour away.

“My dad’s office is directly next to Groundwork, so he recommended that I talk to some of their people when I was looking for an internship, because many of them have been mentors I’ve grown up with,” Sack said. “I realized that I know a majority of the staff there when I visited.”

Thanks to that proactive outreach, she has been able to work with a nonprofit organization that dedicates itself to strengthening communities through local food systems, clean energy initiatives and sustainable transportation.

“Their mission is to build resilient communities and address concerns by asking them what they actually need, rather than by interacting after they’ve created a plan,” Sack said. “I love to make the in-person connections that I do because Groundwork is very community oriented.”

It’s Groundwork’s work around food and farming that aligns closest with Sack’s experiences as a Kalamazoo College student. A double major in anthropology/sociology and women, gender and sexuality, with a concentration in community and global health, Sack interns during the academic year at K’s Hoop House garden, where she helps provide quality food to people who need it. In her Groundwork internship, she addresses community groups and populations to help them find fresh produce and beneficial foods while creating educational materials and in-person meal-prep presentations.

“Local food sources are everything to a community,” Sack said. “My local grocery store in Glen Arbor is expensive and the other closest grocery store is a Meijer that’s about a 30- or 40-minute drive away. Being able to walk or bike a mile down the road and go to my local farmers market every Tuesday and get the produce I need for the week is important for me. But in towns such as Empire and Bezonia, there isn’t a grocery store. Some people resort to processed foods available at a Dollar General rather than farmers markets.”

The good news is that the local farm communities in these areas are getting stronger and seeking publicity, so Sack helps create outreach materials for them along with educational materials for places such as the Empire Regional Food Pantry, the Project Starburst Food Pantry in Big Rapids, and the Up North Fields farm stand in Benzonia.

In addition, she offers presentations at places like the Esperance Community Teaching Kitchen, where she spoke to cancer patients from the Cowell Family Cancer Center, and at Munson Hospital in Traverse City, where she helped train local practitioners in culinary education focused on cardiovascular health.