About 23% of college students in the United States experienced food insecurity in 2020, accounting for nearly 4 million people. The University of Kentucky’s Big Blue Pantry is taking steps to alleviate the issue among its student population with a new food locker program.
The emergency lockers, located in William T. Young Library, are meant to help students in need outside the normal weekday office hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Students can register online for a locker, which is filled with meals and hygiene products for the day.
“If a student has an emergency situation after hours or on the weekend or a holiday, for instance, this enables us to help them directly, even when we're not in the office,” said Andrew Perkins, program coordinator at Big Blue Pantry.
The pantry soft-launched the locker program earlier this summer. Perkins said the initiative indicates a wider interest in addressing food insecurity on campuses.
“I think it's only been in the past decade, and really the past five years, when more and more universities are taking note of it and doing something about it,” he said.
Only a few lockers have been used since the program launched, and Perkins said he hopes that number remains low.
“I've heard in talking with other people it's considered some kind of a rite of passage to have to go without food while you're in college, and that's simply not true,” he said. “We believe that a student should not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or if they're going to have enough food to eat. We can get rid of that barrier so the only thing that a student is concerned about are their studies.”
The Big Blue Pantry is located in Room 016 at Frazee Hall on UK’s campus.
Shelf-stable food donations are accepted at the pantry. A list of items needed the most can be found here, along with ways to make monetary donations to the program.
