The new West Campus Plaza is a place for many things: watching performances, dancing in the water misters and now, supporting a good cause.
Student-run dining carts opening this week on the plaza will offer lunch fare with 50 percent of the proceeds going to local Durham charities.
The three carts will be run by The Halcyon Group, a business partnership of four students, and will be open during the day Monday through Friday, with Sunday hours a possibility in the future.
"Devil's Medley" will sell sandwiches, salads and fresh fruit, "The Sweet Spot" will offer ice cream and smoothies and "Cosmic Outpost" will have ready-made items from Cosmic Cantina. Cosmic will no longer be available in Chick-Fil-A as in years past.
"The Halcyon Group is basically a double-bottom line business-we aim to serve students' dining needs... and simultaneously get students out into the community," said sophomore Katherine Brazer, partner and chief operations officer.
Brazer said she and her partners were inspired by a public policy class three of them took last semester.
Tony Brown, the professor of that course, explained that he teaches his students that "you can use commerce to do good." In Brown's seminar, students must work in teams to develop a social venture that can be implemented at the end of the semester, with grants of up to $1,000 to jump-start the business, he said.
That concept of social entrepreneurship spurred junior Hasnain Zaidi, a Halcyon partner, to re-examine the needs of the surrounding community and how his group could help that community.
Zaidi noticed that although Duke Student Government provides funding to student groups, some off-campus organizations or projects fall through the cracks.
"We're giving them the resources they need to actually enact change in the communities," Zaidi said, adding that he hopes to donate at least $25,000 in the first year through grants.
Although 50 percent of the proceeds will go to charity, the other half will go to, among other things, executive compensation, Zaidi said.
The partnership's initial idea was to have a crepe stand on the plaza, but North Carolina law forbids outdoor food production other than hot dogs, Brazer said.
After contacting the Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee and working with Director of Dining Services Jim Wulforst, the Halcyon Group decided to take over the food carts that were already being planned for the plaza.
Wulforst said it was a no-brainer on his part, since Halcyon will pay for the carts themselves. He added that as students, he is confident they will maintain high quality standards. Students have always worked at some of the University's most popular eateries, including the Beanery, The Perk and Trinity Cafe, Wulforst noted.
"I think they will take a real proprietary interest in running these carts and I can't imagine they won't be successful," Wulforst said.
Brown said he is optimistic. "We'll know how successful they are two years from now," he said.
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