Students and Food Stability

 In pre-pandemic days, I would go to Publix, our local grocery store, at 5:30 a.m. every Monday.  They would give me the carts of baked goods with pull dates that would send them to the garbage if I didn't take them away.  I would spend the first hour of Monday mornings at work unloading the car and putting out day old bread for students and staff to take.  Throughout the week, I would put out plates of treats for students and staff to enjoy.  Usually, I got enough day old treats for the whole week, and despite the pull date, they would last.

I knew that some of our students had food insecurities, and I often wished that I could provide more nutritious food.  I kept some of the bread aside and put it out throughout the week, and we always had a big jar of peanut butter.  I consoled myself by thinking that at least we provided some calories and some nutrition, and I knew that for some of our students, that food was an important supplement, and for some of them, it was all they had.

A year ago, students returned to campus for labs, and our goal was to get them in and out.  We didn't put out food; in fact, we locked the student lounge.  It was the early days of the disease, when we weren't sure of the best ways to keep students safe.  We were more afraid of contagion than of hunger.

A few weeks ago, I got the reminder that the issue of student hunger hasn't gone away.  We had a student who was shaky and out of it, and when we asked him what was going on, he said he hadn't eaten in a few weeks.  We gave him a granola bar and some peanut butter crackers with some juice.

We know we can't solve the problem of student hunger, but we started strategizing.  I applied for a microgrant from Thrivent, the financial group that used to do insurance only for Lutherans only (now they do all kinds of investments for all sorts of people).  Yesterday, we did our first shopping.

We plan to have a basket of snacks and treats always available:

And we'll have something more substantial in the cabinets.  Here's the start we've made on stocking the food pantry/shelf:

Because we know that students need more help than food here and there, we'll also keep handouts with up to date information about where to get more food.  Right now, there are plenty of opportunities; my church's food pantry has never been more well funded, for example.

I'm not under any illusions.  I know that the problem of hunger is far deeper than one food pantry can solve.  But it feels good to be doing a small part to help students stay nourished and stay in school.