Food insecurity on campus during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the University of Arizona to transfer classes online, close the library, and much of campus. However, there are still students in town, and some of them rely on food assistance. The Campus Pantry, a food assistance program of the University of Arizona, is still open to serve them, and some university employees.
At the University of Arizona student union, people wait in line for the Campus Pantry to open.
It’s Tuesday, April 14th, 2020, 1:50 pm. People are lining up at the Memorial Student Union building for the food distribution. The safe distance between people in line is marked with colored tape on the floor. Standing six feet apart the line starts on the underground floor, goes up and turns around the corner on the ground floor. Many people in line wear face masks or scarfs and have gloves on.
At 2 pm Bridgette Nobbe, a Campus Pantry coordinator, greets people in line and explains the rules of distribution. Campus Pantry is available for any student or employee. To get food, every person must have their CatCard scanned.
Food is free but there are limits to how much food every person is allowed to take. However, every week from the Community Food Bank the campus pantry receives fresh produce items to be distributed based on “take as much as you want.” This week tomatoes are unlimited.
There is a point system in place. For example, every piece of produce costs 0,25 points with a maximum of eight items each individual is allowed to have. Prepared meals left from catering services and canned foods —0,5 points. Boxes of pasta, a bag of rice, beans, or millet cost one point. The same is for a dozen eggs, half a gallon of milk, a jar of pasta sauce or peanut butter and a loaf of bread. The most expensive are big boxes of cereal — 2 points.
People start getting inside. To reduce the possible transmission of the coronavirus, the pantry limits the number of people who are allowed inside the hall at any given moment. Hand sanitizer is available at the entrance. At the check-out people have their bags weighed and get tomatoes. The line moves on. More than a hundred people will go through in the next two hours.
The pandemic, according to Nobbe, has changed the line. Despite the closed campus, the number of people coming weekly reduced only in half.
“We see a lot more staff members, who might be custodial staff or maintenance staff. They are all using the pantry now. I think because a lot of their positions have been cut back in hours or they need more support in this time”, she said.
The Campus Pantry also faced supply shortages. Bags of rice and beans and canned meats and tuna were hard to get, Nobbe said.
“We even have been struggling sometimes to get milk and eggs which is something we never had an issue with but there are just like shortages in general with Shamrock farms so they are not donating milk to us nor do they have quantities we need to be purchasing. So trying to get all that food and still support students has been a challenge”, so Nobbe.
The support came from the community. “It’s been great to see people step up and try to help us to get these items”, Nobbe said. Campus Pantry got donations from different departments around campus, as well as private donations.
“The UA bookstore donated quite a bit of food by just asking their staff and faculty members just to come and donate a couple of items”, she said.
The campus pantry is open three times a week — on Tuesdays from 2 until 4 in the afternoon, and from 11 to 1 pm on Wednesdays and Fridays.
“Everybody is asking like ‘When are you gonna close?’ And I just wanna say like the only reason that we would close would be if the health department and the whole university would be like ‘We are completely closed, you are not allowed to have distribution’. We’ll be here until somebody tells me I can not, I will be here,” so Nobbe.
UA Campus Pantry coordinator Bridgette Nobbe points to the supply of spaghetti, which the pantry buys in bulk for the half of grocery store price.
Who is in the line
The pandemic has exacerbated the problem but hasn’t created it.
Despite the availability of government food assistance, only half of the eligible students applied for the Supplementary Food Assistance Program, SNAP, also known as food stamps, according to the 2018 report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The main reason is the lack of information and proper application procedures. Food assistance on campus has almost no barriers.
The only eligibility criteria are to be a part of the University community and come in person.
The Campus Pantry has supported UA students since 2012.
“It was a literal closet. You just open the door, no shelves. And so that was the original campus pantry,” Nobbe said the volunteers were asking for food donations on campus and after several weeks of the drive had enough food for the first distribution.
“They'd email 30 students who they knew are food insecure and a listserv and be like 'We're open, come grab items',” so Nobbe.
Over eight years the program has significantly expanded. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Campus Pantry served more than 1,000 students weekly or around 2,000 unique students during the semester, Nobbe said.
Campus Pantry receives fresh vegetables from hydroponic rooftop garden.
“On average, most students come four times a semester. But a large number of them only come one or two times,” the data could be interpreted differently, she said. Some students, who make their first visit at the end of the semester, may have just learned about the resource but needed it or they may have run out money for food and seek assistance only for a short period.
In an interview before the pandemic, Nobbe said Campus Pantry was planning to organize focus groups to learn more about the reasons behind food insecurity among students and advocate on their behalf. But even just by analysis of data from scanned CatCards they were seeing some trends. For example, international students were overrepresented and comprised 30% of the program users.
Two-thirds of the program users before the pandemic were undergrad students, however, for some colleges, Nobbe said there was a disproportionately large share of graduate students.
“We see very few undergraduate engineering students, but a very high number of graduate engineering students. Eller [College of Management] would be the same way,” she said.
Nobbe hoped that the research could help the Campus Pantry advocate on behalf of the students.
“Then we can go to the graduate college and go to GPSC (Graduate and Professional Student Council) and be like 'Here's all these students that are saying that they just need $5,000 more a year. How can we petition for this to happen?' and start to kind of like have those conversations about what is a livable wage for a graduate student?” she said.