Hunger Summit Summary Report
(by Dani Mesick & Michael Flowers)
Honors Arkansas and the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance recently held an event in Little Rock: The College Hunger Summit. Here is a report by:
SAU AmeriCorps+VISTA Fellows
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Student Panel: Defining the Problem
A panel of students from varying
backgrounds discussed statistics on how hunger impacts college students. On
this panel as well were several students who presented first person accounts of
how hunger has impacted them.
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When defining the problem, sometimes people forgot that
homelessness contributes to the problem of food insecurity. Two students spoke
on this topic, and how the family struggled a great deal to move up the ladder
to where they could afford a home.
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Food insecurity is prevalent among all campuses, and the
panel brought up some statistics.
- John Brown University, private
college, 75% of students were food insecure.
- Percentage of students surveyed
across the state said that 15% of them were better off when they got to
college, and 45% said they were worse off, food security wise, when they got to
college.
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They also brought up the notion that fully online students
who may not live near the campus, would they be able to use the pantries across
the state. This was not something any of the panelists, including most of the
audience, had considered.
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Student Panel: Exploring Solutions
In response to the issues defined
during the “Defining the Problem” segment, students who work with their college
pantries sat on a panel to discuss how their food pantries are addressing
hunger.
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Greek Sculpture Building: Based on the homecoming theme, Greek
organizations would build sculptures out of non-perishable food items. Judges
would then choose the best sculpture, and all of the non-perishables would be
doonated to their college’s food pantry.
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Satellite Locations: Fayetteville explained how they
have smaller pantries located around their campus in order to reach a wider
audience.
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Food Recovery System: Fayetteville has an organization
who collects the excess food from their cafeterias and disperses the collected
good around campus to those in need.
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Food Bank Partnerships: Several of the food panties on the
panel explained how a large portion of their inventory came from their local
food banks.
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Food Allergies Acknowledgement: Several of the food pantries
explained how they intentionally acquired dietary specific inventory to ensure
their pantry users had access to appropriate foods.
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“Lockers”: A few of the food pantries have
lockers or shelves that students had access to at all times. These locations
allowed students to pick up orders outside of their pantry’s operating hours.
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Operating Hours: Many pantries operated for the
entirety of the week excluding weekends. There were some pantries that only
opened one day per week. Some campuses like, University of Arkansas at Pine
Bluff, are only open once a month.
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Food Limits: Some of the bigger food pantries
explained that they did not have food limits for each user. These pantries also
received food bank inventory,
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Online Orders: One pantry explained that they
operated only through online orders. Students would place their orders online,
and then students would come and pick up their orders at a later time.
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Meal Swipes: Several pantries explained that
they issue meal swipes to students. These swipes would allow these students to
have access their cafeteria or other food providers on their campus.
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Frozen Meals: Many pantries talked about their
freezers. These freezers allowed these pantries to store and disperse frozen
goods.
●
Legislative Policy Panel
Present members of the Arkansas
State Legislature included Senator Elliot, Senator Tucker, Representative
Warren, Representative De Ann Vaught, and Representative Tippi McCullough
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Senator Tucker talked about SNAP, and how they wanted to
alleviate the asset limit so more people can be eligible to receive SNAP.
Currently the limit is $2,250.
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Representative Vaught talked about proposing legislation
allowing cattle farmers to be able to donate meat to pantries, churches, and
charities without going against the law. Currently there are two USDA agents in
Arkansas, and they are tasked with going across the state to inspect meat. With
the new legislation, it will make it easier to inspect the meat without
lowering any health standards for the meat.
