Image Credit SOU News
Throughout February of 2022, SOU is hosting a major food drive on campus for its food pantry. The food pantry serves as a way for low-income students to be able to have food supplied to them by the school. Many students struggle with money and are unable to purchase food, and the food they can purchase is both unhealthy and cheap. “Student hunger is a big problem that often goes unnoticed,” says Delaney Armstrong, SOU graduate student and concert producer. Many students struggle with a lot of classes and homework, which means they can not work a lot of hours in the first place. This usually means on top of rent, tuition, and other expenses, there isn’t a lot of money left over.
The food pantry at SOU provides food for students who meet certain criteria and allows them to eat food for cheap. Students can go to the Stevenson Union room 310 to check-in and be able to get 10 different pieces of food a week. The food pantry mainly gets its supplies from donations, and right now there is a donation drive going on campus.
During the month of February, all throughout campus students will see various bins, pictured below, where they can drop off food to go to the pantry. These bins are located in public places like the Hawk and Hannon Library. The food pantry is also running drives during events where students can donate food.
Different events where one can donate food are as follows:
The Food Pantry Benefit Concert
February 8th, 7:30 PM
SOU Music Recital Hall
The Next Best Thing Improv Show, followed by a Raffle – SU Arena
February 18th, 5:30 – 6:15, after which the Raffle takes place at 6:15 – 6:30
You will get a raffle ticket for each can, non-perishable, or toiletry item you bring in.
The Siskiyou got a statement from The Next Best Thing co-captain Rebeckah Kenney about the food drive and TNBT’s involvement in the event. She stated that she and her other co-captain Emily Perry were approached by EPIC about performing to raise awareness and to gain more attendance for the event. The Next Best Thing was happy to perform to help the food drive, and they hope to see many people bring in donations to help the food drive.
For more information about the food, drive click this link.
For those in need of food, students just need to fill out a form that will ask various questions, mainly name, student ID, income, where the student currently resides, and family members in their household. Once filled out, someone who works for the food pantry will fill out their own form, and once approved the student is allowed to 10 pieces of food from the pantry a week for the entire school year. Click the link right here to see the form.
