By Katie Schroeder and Beth Olson.
You know that old joke about college kids and ramen? How it’s all they can afford? Well, it seems there may be more truth to that you may think. College students all over the country are experiencing food insecurity and UW Madison is no exception to this. A Hope Lab study conducted in 2018 found that nearly 36 percent of university students were food insecure. This means that many students have times where they have limited access to adequate food to sustain themselves. This is due to several reasons including higher tuition costs, increased cost of living, and imbalance in wage increases. According the a Georgetown University report, the cost of a college education has gone up 169% since 1980, although wages have only increased 19%. With this being such a prominent issue on college campuses, what is UW Madison doing to combat it?
One UW Madison alumnus has stepped up to this challenge and has developed a program to combat food insecurity on campus. Agnes Sherman, a registered dietitian and alumnus of the UW Madison Dietetics Program first began her career in clinical dietetics. She then switched to Food Service Administration in K12 nutrition and eventually shifted into college and university food service where she has been ever since. Her current position provides her with insight on large scale food operations and how that can help assist in programming to combat food insecurity.
Agnes has used her position in Housing and Dining Services to create a program aimed to tackle this problem of student food insecurity. UW Frozen Meals Program was started by Sherman in partnership with former UW Food Science lecturer, Monica Theis. Dr. Theis’s connections to grant funding, through the American Family Dreams Foundations, kick-started the programs and continues to support the annual costs of running it. Their program works to repackage and freeze unserved dining hall food, which is then distributed to several freezers on campus where students can pick up meals with no eligibility requirements and no questions asked. Currently, they produce 200-350 meals a week which go out to UW students. This program is one of many that have been implemented in recent years to improve student’s access to food on campus.
An example of another successful program on campus is the Swipe Out Hunger campaign, which the Dean of Students Office sponsors every semester. Within this program, students can donate their meal swipes on a UW Housing meal plan to other students in need. UW Housing collects on average 2500 meal swipes per semester. When the program ran a campaign in 2021, they raised $8500 for Badgers in need. Monetary donations to the program can be made at all Wisconsin Union and UW Bookstore locations. The Open Seat is another example of an on-campus organization. Student-run food pantry, the Open Seat is a place where students can go to get food when in need. Located at the Student Activity Center, The Open Seat provides students with both shelf-stable and fresh foods free of cost with no eligibility requirements. While food insecurity remains an issue on campus, there are there are people working to fight student food insecurity. Here is a list of resources in Madison and Dane County for anyone needing food assistance.