By Rachel Helgeson, reporting intern
Julie Carr said she took on the role of supervisor of UW-Eau Claire’s Campus Harvest food pantry in 2014 not knowing if students would take advantage of the new resource.
“The first day we opened, we had a student waiting outside the door,” Carr said in a recent interview. “We weren’t sure how many students were in need, but we knew there were students out there that were having food issues.”
Increased Student Usage
When the pantry opened in 2014 on the university campus, 25 students were using it each week. Carr said the pantry now helps between 40 and 60 students every week, most of whom live off-campus.
The first year the pantry was open, nearly 6,300 pounds of food was provided. Last year, the pantry provided approximately 11,200 pounds of food, Carr said.
Carr, who also works in the Dean of Students’ office as an executive staff assistant, said, “I can’t stand to know there are people out there that don’t have enough food in our country, in our city, anywhere in the United States, because we have an abundance of everything.”
The pantry does not ask questions about the students’ economic status but requires they swipe their student identification card at the door before entering. Carr said the pantry is meant to provide for the students, but faculty are never turned away if they come with their university identification.
Pantry Needed on Campus
Although there are at least 11 food pantries in the Eau Claire community, according to a website (https://www.foodpantries.org/ci/wi-eau_claire) that tracks them nationally, Carr said it’s imperative to have a pantry on UW-Eau Claire’s campus.
“Students don’t necessarily feel comfortable going to somewhere out in the community even if you let them know where that is,” Carr said, “And we wanted some place that was convenient for students because they all know how to get around campus. So it made sense to have something here.”
The pantry, located in Room 4 in the basement of Schofield Hall, is open 3-5 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday and 2-4 p.m. on Wednesdays each week.
The UW-Eau Claire Foundation provided $3,000 annually for three years starting in 2014, to assist the pantry’s startup, Carr said. The pantry was running by that September with Carr as its supervisor along with a paid student intern and various student volunteers.
Car said Campus Harvest is now self-sufficient and is supported by donations. Each fiscal year the pantry spends about $2,000.
“I try very hard to be frugal with our money donations. I am mindful of making sure the majority of our funds go to food,” Carr said. “I do use a small portion of our fund donations to make up brochures, posters or business cards for advertising, but ironically most students hear about us through word of mouth.”
Carr said the cost to run the pantry includes the student intern’s salary. Carr’s salary is not included in the cost as her position is a part of her full-time job in the Dean of Students’ office.
Feed My People’s Role
Campus Harvest is partnered with Feed My People, one of the Eau Claire food banks. Carr said the campus pantry can purchase $10 worth of food for as little as $1 from that organization. The pantry is also beginning to provide fresh produce each week through the food bank and donations from the community.
Feed My People’s assistant director Suzanne Becker and Kimera Way, President of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation, began speaking about the need for a pantry on the UW-EC campus in 2014. Becker said they had heard about student need through word-of-mouth but were not sure of the exact numbers.
Feed My People reported on its website that over 10% of Wisconsin’s food-insecure population is made up of college students. But the exact number of Eau Claire college students in need is unknown.
“It’s a really tricky thing (gathering UW-Eau Claire student need statistics), it’s hard to know,” Becker said, “(There’s) no hard and fast answer.”
Chippewa Valley Technical College has a pantry as well and is also partnered with Feed My People, which claims partnership with 30 other pantries in Eau Claire county.
Positive Responses
Responses to the pantry have been positive since its opening, Carr said, and Campus Harvest has benefitted from local support.
“I’ve never had a student that has not been grateful about this. They’re thrilled that we have this,” Carr said, “It takes a community to do this, it takes the campus community and the Eau Claire community.”
One third-year traditional student, who requested anonymity, returns to the pantry every so often because she lives off campus and does not have a car to travel conveniently to the grocery store.
“It helps lighten the load that I have every week,” she said, “This is really convenient and it helps out a lot.”
To spread the word about the pantry and the students’ needs, Carr talks about the status of the pantry at church services, luncheons, 4-H groups and the UW-Eau Claire education department.
Becker, the assistant director at Feed My People, said one of Carr’s recent presentations “brought tears to my eyes, because there were (facts about) non-traditional students, single parents and students with other challenges. And to not have enough money to provide regular, consistent, nutritious food is such a barrier to your academic success. To hear that it is making a difference is really wonderful.”
Note: photos of Campus Harvest that accompany this article were taken by Rachel Helgeson.
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