“Pack your Pantry” event aids food insecurity

Thirty juniors at St. Ben’s have been receiving free food and nutrition education as a part of the “pack your pantry” program launched by Dr. Emily Heying of the nutrition department. Heying’s idea for “pack your pantry” stemmed from research she began in 2018 that examines student food insecurity experiences at CSB+SJU.

“One of the key findings that has shown up repeatedly is that food insecurity increases between second and third year for students,” Heying said.

Through conversations with different departments on campus, such as Residential Life and Culinary Services, Heying gained a better understanding of the variety of changes that impact students’ living habits between their sophomore and junior years. The transition from dorm-style living to apartments leads to greater kitchen access and the option to select a meal plan besides the continuous meal plan, which Heying points out changes how and where students get their meals from. Heying designed the pack your pantry program to better understand how third year students are nourishing themselves, with specific questions in mind.

“Do they have the knowledge to prepare the foods that they need to, do they have the time to prepare the foods that they need, do they have the money to prepare what they need to, and do they have the foresight to really meal plan?” Heying said.

Heying’s research at CSB is unique among existing research on food insecurity on college campuses, as it is the first on a small residential campus. The program contributes to a growing area of research that examines food insecurity experiences on college campuses. Heying is a part of a national collaboration of 15-20 researchers focused on food insecurity. Through surveys participants complete during the program, Heying hopes to understand how the interventions affect participants cooking confidence, food security and self-perceived nourishment. As a growing area of research, food insecurity and its ramifications in the classroom and on the physical and mental health of students have become more known. Researchers have found links between students experiencing food insecurity and poor academic performance, lower dietary quality, lower self-esteem and an increased risk of anxiety and depression.

“Oftentimes the interventions are not necessarily assessed or evaluated to see if they solved the root cause of why the food insecurity was occurring,” Heying said.

Participants in the four weeklong program receive groceries for two meals per week, recipes and educational videos. Main courses on the menu for this week are minestrone soup and sloppy joe baked potatoes. Granola bars were included in the grocery pickup for snacking throughout the week. Bennies participating in the study picked up their second round of groceries on Nov. 4. Most of the recipes call for shelf stable foods such as pasta, lentils and canned vegetables. Heying pointed out that it was important to use shelf stable foods because not only are they nourishing, but they are affordable and last for long periods of time, which is great for a busy schedule.

Accompanying the groceries were recipes and directions for participants to prepare their food throughout the week. Through videos that Heying filmed and uploaded onto YouTube, Bennies learned how to sauté garlic, cut sweet potatoes, meal plan and access different community resources that provide food assistance.

This program puts a spotlight on students’ experiences with food insecurity at CSB+SJU. Heying noted that since her team began researching food insecurity at CSB+SJU in 2018, there has been an increase in awareness about food security and more short-term solutions offered to increase food security.

“Culinary Services and Residential Life have partnered to provide freezer meals for students who are staying on campus over break, and the Multicultural Center has also put on opportunities for students to eat during academic breaks,” Heying said.

Heying points out that breaks are when food insecurity is at its worst. With Thanksgiving break on the horizon, the library has partnered with the nutrition club to put together and distribute snack packs for students staying on campus. While these short-term solutions mitigate some experiences of food insecurity, they highlight a need for greater food security at CSB+SJU, which Heying hopes to understand more deeply after the “pack your pantry” program.

“[It] started small because we had very limited funding and we also wanted to be able to appropriately assess and evaluate the program,” Heying said.

After analyzing the results of this study, Heying hopes to grow the program and introduce a similar intervention at SJU in the coming years.