Tackling Hunger on College Campuses

By Kendall Curlee

Last April, more than 125 honors students and professors from all areas of the state gathered at Heifer International’s Little Rock headquarters to shed light on a hidden issue: hunger on college campuses. The Arkansas College Hunger Summit wrapped up more than a year of planning and weekly Zoom classes last fall that were sponsored by Honors Arkansas, an alliance of honors educators from across the state. Jennie Popp, associate dean, and Louise Hancox, director of career innovation, led the class, which organized a survey of food insecurity conducted on nine campuses across the state.

“Overall, we found that one-third of respondents said that they had skipped meals or cut meal sizes because they didn’t have enough money for food,” said Jennie Popp. “And 40% of them were unable to focus in class sometimes or often due to limited food intake. That’s unacceptable!” 

Madison Price, a Path Scholar and honors agricultural business major, leapt at the chance to participate in Honors Arkansas Research Scholars: Food Insecurity because growing up in Branch, Arkansas, “I saw it all the time; our poverty rate is very high.” In addition to helping with the survey, she worked to document all the farmers’ markets across Arkansas. “It brought me back to small towns like my own,” she said, and her spreadsheet, organized by county, is one of many useful tools that came out of the course. 

The Hunger Summit, organized by both Honors Arkansas and the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, and sponsored by Garcia Family Arkansas Fund and Arkansas Community Foundation, had the greatest impact. There, the students presented their work and had the ear of state legislators, elected officials and other movers and shakers in attendance. 

U of A students Julianna Kantner, an Honors College Fellow and international studies and political science major, and Sydnie Wilson, an honors entrepreneurship/finance major, moderated the first panel, where students shared their personal experiences with food insecurity. A student from a rural area of the state stated that a main staple for her family was squirrel soup, “because squirrel is free and our only source of meat.” Another student, the first in his family of seven to attend college, recalled that at times, his parents resorted to dumpster diving to feed their kids. 

The second panel, moderated by U of A marketing major and Honors College Fellow Ben Walworth, focused on campus food pantries and food recovery efforts, all of which were forced into overdrive by COVID-19. Students on the panel discussed best practices and challenges such as the need for more fresh food and the stigma associated with using the pantry. “Especially on college campuses, there’s a sense that ‘others need food more,’” said Briana Roden, a supply chain management major who chairs the U of A’s Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry. 

The event culminated in a bipartisan panel of five legislators, moderated by Cassie Jankowski, a nursing student at Arkansas State University. They discussed concrete solutions to food insecurity, from raising or eliminating asset limits that block people’s access to SNAP benefits, to a bill introduced by Rep. DeAnn Vaught (R-District 4) to establish a state meat inspection program. “This will bring more meat to stores, and more meat donated to food pantries,” Vaught said.

Arkansas Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-District 31), a former teacher and single mother who’s had personal experience with food insecurity at home and in her classroom, encouraged the students to keep the ball rolling: “A little something here, a little something there, is a recipe for nothing’s going to change,” she said. “Talk to local, county and state legislators about hunger, and hold us accountable. You are needed to help make change happen.”