Campus Harvest Food Pantry celebrates anniversary, new location

“Students are going to see us now, so the awareness is going to go up,” says Dr. Sarah Snyder, student assistance manager and Campus Harvest coordinator.

Students, faculty and staff celebrated Campus Harvest’s 10-year anniversary Aug. 27 with an open house at its new location in Room 103 of Davies Center. The pantry moved from its former home in Brewer Hall over the summer.

A spring 2024 survey indicated that more than 47% of Blugolds have some level of food insecurity and pantry usage continues to grow. Campus Harvest served 861 individual students in 2023, up from 432 in 2022.

“Our students are hungry,” Snyder says. “We are proud to be able to provide such a needed resource to our students.”

During the celebration, Chancellor James Schmidt says Campus Harvest Food Pantry is a program this is “close to my heart.” Schmidt recalls growing up in rural Minnesota in a family of modest means that included subsidized housing and food stamps.

“People, with the economy and situations, can find themselves in positions where they just need help,” Schmidt says. “Certainly, college students are in that population.”

Schmidt says the Davies Center location is “prime real estate” that can showcase an important resource for students in need of basic necessities.

“I talked to students who said they felt shameful being tucked in the corner of Brewer Hall,” Schmidt says of the former pantry location.

The food pantry also serves as an educational resource each semester for students who volunteer to complete their service-learning hours. Some classes also go to the pantry to learn about food insecurity.

For information about helping to support the food pantry, visit the Campus Harvest webpage.