St Francis Xavier University might be a small little school in the east coast of Canada, but it’s got a big heart. Being part of such a strong community is something every Xaverian is proud of, and it’s easy to connect to fellow X students around you.
One Saturday while lying in bed avoiding studying for midterms, I was browsing the Food Network Snapchat story. It had been “taken over” by a (dope af) group called Spoon University. Being someone who both loved food (duh) and was in University, I googled Spoon to see what is was all about. Turned out, it was also a strong community of like minded people – all who loved food.
GIF courtesy of americasbestracing.net
When I saw the button to “start a charter”, it seemed like a no brainer to look into it for my school. Honestly, I only reached out to see if it would be possible to get Spoon into a Canadian school, but two days later I was on the phone with a Community Growth Manager at HQ about getting the ball rolling to start a charter at X.
I was really excited about bringing Spoon University to StFX. It seemed to be the missing puzzle piece I was looking for at school. I’m a nutrition major, so obviously I love food. Spoon seemed like the perfect place to get to share my interests in not only nutrition, but all things food. I also was excited to get into blogs and writing to try something new.
I was looking forward to creating a team that shared my interests. I knew I couldn’t be the only one who loved to scroll Instagram and look at #foodporn on a Sunday night. Like I said, StFX is a very spirited place, and food is a huge part of our traditions. I knew that X would love a resource to find all the fun restaurants in town and share all the meal hall hacks people had discovered.
GIF courtesy of theodysseyonline.com
I was a little nervous when I heard I had to get 300 signatures in one week to start a charter. But with the help of Spoon HQ and a supportive student body, we got the signatures in no time! Turns out when you tell people you’re bringing a food resource to campus, it’s not hard to get them on board. Walking around with my iPad and showing everyone the sweet articles and recipes made it hard to say no.
What I loved about starting Spoon was all the support I had from HQ. Being part of other committees and clubs at school, it was sometimes hard moving things forward when we all had papers and tests to study for, but with Spoon I aways had people helping provide sick swag, motivation and support to get things done.
GIF courtesy of giphy.com
It turned out that I really had nothing to be nervous about when it came to bringing Spoon to X. Even starting a charter around our exam time, we had a ton of people interested in joining our team. After creating a killer team with the support of my fellow Spoon StFX Execs, we started getting ready for our launch. Our first six articles blew our expectations away and we’ve been successful ever since.
Spoon Univeristy has already taught me so much about community, business and food. Not to mention it has given me backstage access to restaurants in town who are super excited to partner with us. It also doesn’t hurt that I get to add my work to my resume and be associated with a company name that has partnerships with the Food Network, Cosmo, MTV, Buzzfeed and more!
GIF courtesy of riffsy.com
This summer, Spoon StFX has gotten to publish articles and pics of food from all over the country and I cannot wait to get back to campus to publish more StFX food hacks and throw events all about food. Looking back, I’m really glad I checked that Snapchat story on the Saturday morning four months ago – looks like procrastination can be a good thing.