A Student-Led Solution For Food Insecurity On Campus

Our scholarship applicant’s projects are underway and we are beaming with pride over what they have accomplished! The most wholesome part of this scholarship program is watching kids across the nation (and sometimes even the globe) change their communities in such an intimate but profound way. Let’s take a closer look at one scholarship applicant that has participated by submitting forms one and two for feedback.

A student in North Carolina identified a food scarcity problem within her area, specifically among her peers within her school campus. She writes, 

“I think our community has a major food insecurity problem, I have been a part of the Food Lion Feeds project for two years and I feel like it is even more important to help others now than ever. I have been working to create a food pantry on my school’s high school/college campus for students to use as needed! I want to help others because knowing that students are coming to school and can’t purchase food or are struggling to do their work because they are hungry is completely unacceptable to me and I dislike that students have to go through that. I want to do this project because I never want a student to feel that way. My goal is to be able to provide lunch or dinner meals for students so they can be more productive and find more success in the classroom. I have hosted multiple food drives and have worked to have the pantry stocked up to 1000 items. I need to build relationships with other programs on campus to connect students in need so they can create more long-term fixes to their insecurities. My community has been very supportive and helpful throughout this project but managing the budget for this project has been a struggle and I need to learn more about this aspect.” 

We have been in contact with this student to brainstorm funding and budgeting, but we are confident she is on the right track and will be able to use this feedback to continue helping her peers and growing her pantry. In the first feedback submission, we suggested sending more photo evidence of what she has accomplished, and with form two, she did exactly that. This is just a small example of why these feedback forms can be so beneficial for our scholarship applicants, it gives them the chance to know what more we are looking for and how they can better their final application. 

We are all looking forward to where this project takes her and how it benefits her school’s campus both short-term and long-term!