Students on campus have created The University of Mississippi Food Bank to provide food for students who are not able to afford meals.
“The Food Bank was launched Thursday, Nov. 8 and began serving students on Nov. 12 in the old math lab, Kinard Hall,” said Mary Margaret Saulters, co-student director of the food bank.
Robert Cummings, director of the university’s Center for Writing and Rhetoric and faculty sponsor for the food bank, said the food bank is a permanent organization.
“We are located in Kinard 213 Monday through Thursday at various times and we are staffed,” Cummings said.
The food bank was open during the Thanksgiving break and plans on being open when needed, according to Cummings.
“We were open on a call basis,” he said. “Camp Best, advocate in the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, and I left our phone numbers on the front door in the event we needed to open for a student who needed food.”
The food bank is led by a committee of faculty and students and stands firm with the anonymity for students that come in need of food.
“Students must have an Ole Miss ID, but all clients retain anonymity,” Cummings said.
Since its launch, the food bank has gained success and recognition. Saulters was grateful for the donations that were made.
“We were lucky to have the support of a number of organizations on campus, who organized fundraisers and canned food drives so that our shelves were fully stocked on Monday when we opened,” Saulters said.
Cummings believes that students will learn from participating in the food bank.
“While there are many practical business skills involved, such as management, budgeting and marketing, I think that students will always remember that they learned how to be sensitive and aware of the needs of others,” he said.
“We might not be able to always solve big problems, but we can ameliorate them by remaining practical and building community around our shared principles.”
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