At Virginia Tech Hillel, Sustainability and Jewish Tradition Go Hand in Hand
In celebration of Earth Day, we are excited to share the incredible work that Virginia Tech Hillel does to care for the earth and produce sustainable, kosher food for Jewish students.
When it comes to getting an early start as Jewish program facilitators, Hillel at Virginia Tech’s Greg and Amanda Herring might have set a new Hillel record: They’ve been running Jewish community meals since they were 12 years old.
“We actually hosted a Passover lunch in middle school in the cafeteria, because we were tired of whatever our moms had been making for Passover by midway through the week,” Amanda recalled. “So we had a small group of Jewish friends and said, ‘How about everybody just brings one thing that your mom has made, and we’ll have a little Passover potluck at school during lunch?’”
It’s been a long journey from the middle school cafeteria to building a sustainable kosher food program at Virginia Tech Hillel, where Amanda serves as the Kurtz Family Executive Director and Greg as the Hillel chef — but food has played a role at every step.
Greg and Amanda began dating during their college years, while Amanda attended Virginia Tech, where she was Hillel president, and Greg attended culinary school in Jerusalem. Greg later moved back to Virginia to be closer to Amanda, and together, they helped open the Malcolm Rosenberg Hillel Center, with Greg as the original head chef. They also spent several years in New York, where they were some of the first OneTable Shabbat hosts. “Hosting Shabbat dinners in our sixth-floor walkup for anyone willing to walk up six flights of stairs,” Amanda joked.
After years working in farm-to-table and fine dining, and then getting even closer to where food came from by learning butchery, Greg had become deeply invested in sustainable food and farming — values Amanda shared as well. After a period of time in the Washington, D.C. area, they knew they wanted to live somewhere they could have enough land to do some farming of their own.
That brought them back to Blacksburg — and back to Virginia Tech Hillel, where Amanda became executive director in 2023.
“When we came back to Hillel, one of the most important things to us was living our food values and our Jewish identity of gathering people around the table,” Amanda said. “As we got in touch with the Jewish Farmer Network and the Jewish farming movement, we realized that so many of the rules around food in kashrut come from our agricultural ancestors. Getting in touch with where our food comes from makes so many kashrut laws more relatable.”
One example among many is the ways we make sure meat is safe for consumption.
“Jews were about 3,000 years ahead of the USDA in terms of some things,” Greg said, referring to antemortem and postmortem inspections of animals before and after slaughter — a USDA standard, and an ancient practice amongst kosher butchers.
“The concept that the animal must be healthy and calm, and able to stand calmly and presently to be slaughtered is a foundational tenant of Jewish slaughter that dates back thousands of years, and it took the Mad Cow outbreak for the rest of the world to go say, ‘Hey, maybe if that animal can’t even stand up, it isn’t safe to eat,’” he added.
The Jewish tenet of being stewards of the earth has become a core value in how Greg and Amanda approach their Hillel’s food program, which has been transformational in their community. All of their meat comes from KOL Foods, a local kosher producer that is certified “regenerative,” which means that the way they farm animals is carbon-negative — actually reducing the carbon impact on the planet. Greg and Amanda have also worked to build partnerships with local farms so that as much of the produce they use as possible is locally sourced.
“It’s about knowing your farmers,” Amanda explained. “It’s talking to people, and building relationships, and saying, ‘Look, we’re a nonprofit. We’re a Hillel. We’re trying to feed students. We’re trying to feed them well and healthy, because that makes your mind work.’”
In return, Amanda explained, the farmers are able to look at what they have — for example, 10 cases of tomatoes that are perfectly good to eat, but probably won’t sell. That would be a product loss for the farm, and would harm their sustainability goals because of the wasted food.
“So at Hillel, with our freezer space and our massive tomato mill, we can take all those cases of tomatoes, turn them all into sauce, freeze them, and use them throughout the year,” she said. “We’re helping our farmer, and they’re helping us, because we get them at a huge discount.”
That approach to sustainability has made its way not just into Hillel’s kitchen, but into their programming as well. At Shabbat dinners, after the blessings but before students are called up to get their food, Greg will talk the students through where the food came from, telling them the names of the farms and encouraging them to visit.
“This is maybe one of the only environmental movements that’s asking you to be kind of gluttonous,” Amanda said. “You’re not giving up fast fashion, you’re not giving up something else. You’re just eating the most delicious food, because it’s as fresh and seasonal and tasty as it gets.”
When it comes to advice for others who might be looking to bring more Jewish-inspired sustainability to their kitchens, Amanda and Greg have one big suggestion: start small.
“Maybe it’s something as simple as saying, ‘We’re going to make apple butter, and 100% of our apple butter is going to be from a local orchard,’” Amanda said. “The students can pick apples at Rosh Hashanah, and we’ll have an event where we process them, [and] make a ton of apple butter. And then every week when there’s a meat meal, we’ll put apple butter with our challah, and the students will know it’s our apple butter. It’s one less thing we’re getting from a distributor — and students will see what an impact they can have.”