National nonprofit leader to honor Morgridge Center for Public Service

Robert Egger, a James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year award winner, author, and a national expert on sustainable food use and nonprofit management, will speak on campus on Wednesday, April 11, in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Morgridge Center for Public Service.

Egger will speak on “The Role of Nonprofits in Building and Rebuilding Economies” at the center’s event, which begins at 7 p.m. in Union South’s Varsity Hall. It is free and open to the public.

Egger, whose 20-year career has won him many awards, is best known as the founder and president of the DC Central Kitchen, where unemployed men and women learn marketable culinary skills using food donated by restaurants, hotels and caterers.

Since opening in 1989, the kitchen has distributed more than 23 million meals and helped more than 800 men and women gain full-time employment. The model has been adopted in more than 40 other communities.

“Robert’s lifetime of exquisite community-focused ingenuity provides inspiration for the Morgridge Center’s more than 155 nonprofit partners and its 3,000 student volunteers,” says Nancy Mathews, the center’s director and a professor at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

UW-Madison students’ interest in volunteering has exploded in the past five years, Mathews adds. More than 900 students will have volunteered this year at nonprofits in Madison. They tutor at-risk youth, assist the elderly with daily tasks, and advocate on behalf of the environment, among other programs.

The Morgridge Center for Public Service, located in the Red Gym on the UW–Madison campus, connects the university with community through service, service-learning, and community-based research to build a thriving democratic society.

A broad range of campus and community partners are co-sponsoring the lecture. They include: Community Shares of Wisconsin; Forward Community Investments; UW’s International Institute; UW Lectures Committee; Madison Commons; Porchlight Inc.; Second Harvest Foodbank; Slow Food UW; Wisconsin Campus Compact; and the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Distinguished Lectures Committee.