USU’s Student Nutrition Access Center (SNAC) has been experiencing more traffic recently, and is now relying on student’s and faculty’s competitive spirits to help replenish food stores.
SNAC kicked off their Pack the Pantry competition last week. The food drive will last until Dec. 20, and pits university departments against each other to see who can raise the most food poundage. SNAC’s goal for the drive is 5,000 pounds of food donations, and SNAC Student Director Janna Cook said right now they’re about 20% of the way towards that goal.
“The Huntsman School of Business just did a huge food drive, and that contributed just over 1,000 pounds on its own," she said. "So we're definitely getting there, but we still have a ways to go.”
Cook says the pantry has been seeing more students relying on them for food, and pointed to a recent study by the university which found more than half of USU students report food insecurity. Participants also reported that their resulting hunger often made it difficult to focus in class and achieve academic success.
But it seems that pantries across the state are all struggling to keep shelves stocked right now.
“We're also seeing a decrease in the amount of food that we're receiving from a lot of those donors that have, in the past, given us the majority of our food,” Cook explained.
She specifically referenced the Cache Community Food Pantry, who put out their own plea for help from the community last month. She said the 1,200 pound weekly donation that SNAC used to receive from the local food pantry has now been slashed in half.
“So that was a big trigger for this Pack the Pantry food drive," Cook said. "Because the Cache Community Food Pantry is at an all time low, we're only getting five to six hundred pounds of food from them each week.”
And when nearly a thousand students visit the pantry per week during peak times of the year, that much food just doesn’t stretch far enough.
Items specifically requested for the food drive include peanut butter, pasta sauce, soup, mac and cheese, oatmeal packets, canned foods, – such as vegetables and tuna – and other non-perishables.
Drop off locations can be found at USU’s Pack the Pantry Website, as well as a live count of the food drive’s progress.
