Hello all,

I hope you are having a wonderful start to summer. I wanted to share a couple of webinars sponsored by PantrySoft and FRAC that will take place tomorrow – Wednesday, June 25th.

<strong data-olk-copy-source=”MessageBody”>Client Showcase: Mastering PantrySoft Together

<strong data-olk-copy-source=”MessageBody”>Jun 25, 2025 01:00 PM…

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We are seeking job descriptions for part-time student roles in the Food /Basic Needs Pantry. If you can share one, we would be so grateful! TIA

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[Beth] [Goad]
[Associate Director of Operations]
[University of Denver]
[Denver] [CO]
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Hi all,I’d also love to join a call about pantrysoft and lockers.  We are just about to start using Pantrysoft and will get lockers in the next month or so. 
Thanks! 
Kendi Esary (hear my name) she/her pronouns

Director of Student Life and Leadership, Sustainability Leadership and Basic Needs

Portland Community College

971.722.5781  |  pcc.edu

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Hi all – I’m happy to participate in the conversation if you all have interest. Would love to hear what each of you are doing and learn a bit more… plus I can share info about the boxes and system we provide for context.? Let me know if I can help with scheduling or any additional info.? Thanks!

Jason

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Hi Amber,

If possible, I would love to jump on that call too. We would like to learn more about the locker system you discussed and I can speak about Pantrysoft as well

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Dylan Heffernan
Assistant Director of We Care and Civic Engagement
Ramapo College
Mahwah NJ Read more

Hi Kevin,?

I’d love to set up a zoom call soon to chat – as Jason said, we’re working with both of those, the lockers and pantrysoft, so would be glad to talk to you about how we have it set up. The lockers will be in use soon, but we’ve been utilizing pantrysoft for the past year and have just gone through what needed to be changed or updated…

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Hi and good morning Kevin. I’ll reach out to you about a great solution we have that might help in conjunction with PantrySoft and would recommend connecting with Phil Smith from Rutgers if you haven’t already. Phil is working with us and uses PantrySoft and I’d bet he has some excellent insights. Will email you some info, and if anyone else…

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Hello folks!?

The University of Houston Cougar Cupboard is considering utilizing PantrySoft and/or potentially installing food lockers for student pickups

Can I get input on what has helped or what strengths and areas of concerns for folks that are already using these kind of services on your campus? We would appreciate any feedback that y’all…

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Don’t miss your chance to sign up for the spring soft launch of our basic needs support incubators!??

We designed these incubators based on your thoughtful reflections of where you are in your effort to support students’ basic needs and what you need most from a community of practice. You and your colleagues shared a strong desire to connect…

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Awesome, thank you for sharing! We also received it and are talking with our faculty researchers in partnering with us to contribute.?

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Phillip R. Smith, Ed.D. He/Him/His (and why?)
Assistant Dean of Students, Student Basic Needs
Rutgers University – New Brunswick
Off-Campus Living and Community Initiatives
39… Read more

Greetings!

On behalf of New Directions for Student Services (NDSS), we are excited to announce a call for authors for articles in a special issue tentatively titled Innovative Approaches to Meeting College Students’ Basic Needs. ?

Student basic needs is an emerging and critical topic in US higher education. For the first time, in 2023…

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Hi Dylan,

The FoodPrint article Amber mentions contains a number or sources for unique apps, and a reference to the national Food Recovery Network, so there are a number of options out there.

Sharemeals, I believe, is still used by Stanford Food Recovery, a student org, and here are a few contacts from the group if you’d want to reach…

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Just saw this and couldn’t respond before, but I’m curious if you’ve had any updates. We’re looking into a few programs for this currently too – have you had any luck in researching? The one the makes sense for a trial would be ShareMeals – you can open or close the community where you use a code or by their university emails, and can set…

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We are excited to announce the Student Basic Needs Community of Practice, established in Fall 2023.

We plan to have an interest meeting to connect and talk about best practices and what everyone does on their campus. It will be informal but will give you the opportunity to meet others who might do this work on their home campuses.?

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Hi Everyone! At Ramapo College, we are looking into creating a food rescue program for leftover food at events. This would allow clubs and orgs to post that leftover food is available towards the end of their event, when it will be thrown out, the locations, and other relevant details. We have seen some campuses use their LMS for programs…

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Hi! Ours is called the Western Hub of Living Essentials, or WHOLE. This started, I believe, in 2019, and is well known on campus with that acronym.?

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Jenn Cook
Assistant Director, Leadership and Community Engagement
Western Washington University Read more

Hello!

Happy to see this being discussed.

At the University of Houston, our pantry is called “Cougar Cupboard”. I know other pantries have switched to calling themselves “markets”, and it has worked well for them. We already have markets on our campus, so we had to avoid that term, but it is a great alternative.

We try to market ourselves as…

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Similar to Cortney’s response, ours is called Freddy’s Pantry. Freddy is the name of our falcon mascot. I haven’t heard of negative feedback around the name or Freddy’s Pantry naming decreasing the use and it gets used pretty often.

Maybe “(mascot/name) pantry” gives off more you’re going to a pantry in your place of living rather than a…

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Hello!

At Missouri State, ours is called the Bear Pantry. I also know that Kansas State’s pantry is called Cats’ Cupboard but do not know any details on it.
I do not oversee our campus pantry but thinking back to past conversations I don’t believe we have received much, if any, negative feedback over our name choice. Ours has been open for almost…

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Hi Everyone!

We recently received some feedback that the term Food Pantry could have a negative connotation that could impact students’ willingness to utilize the resource offered. Has any other on-campus food pantry received this feedback? Has anyone changed or selected a different title based on similar feedback to what was mentioned above?…

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Hi Milton,?

We have a pantry in our union building and several smaller pantries have popped up around campus. Ours is staffed and funded, in addition to donations and monetary donations through our Foundation office. We also collect food from our local Miracle Food Network organization (food recovery) and Trader Joe’s gives us weekly donations…

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Dear All,

First thank you for your work. We have the great opportunity to have meaningful work.

I looked over the presentation but haven’t been able to listen to the webinar, but I wanted to ask what are you all doing about facilitating food insecurity among students?

Thanks again

Milton

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Milton KARAHADIAN
Dir.… Read more

From Education Northwest:?

Just-released data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that students across the nation are enduring food and housing insecurity. What can we learn from this new information about how to help students, and what should we do now?

Join us for a webinar, What Now? Practitioners and Researchers Discuss…

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So, not my questions per se, but saw it on another discussion board and wanted to get this groups thoughts and opinions.?

What are some resources or creative solutions that you use when working with students whose parent refuses to file taxes or provide income information, making them ineligible for…

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Hi Phillip,?

At CU Boulder we have worked to create a few ways for students to get emergency funding. During enrollment periods students, if approved for emergency funding, can receive the money directly to their checking accounts. We have worked it out with the Bursars Office so that any emergency funding does not go to pay for their…

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Hello everyone,?

I’m wondering if anyone currently runs any type of training for your staff and/or volunteers around how to handle conflict in a pantry. For example, our staff attempted to calmly and respectfully ask that a person not take the several items of the same thing they were and the person became really upset and agitated, tears and…

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Hey all, hope the summer is starting off well for you. I wanted to reach out to ask how emergency aid is disbursed on your campuses?
1. Is it sent to a students school account and then awarded as a refund?
2. If so, what happens if the student has a balance on their account? Does the aid get absorbed by the balance and whatever is left…

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Hello!

We utilize our student engagement platform, CampusGroups, to track student visitors.? Our data is pretty segregated and access to it is limited.? Staff, faculty, and community users are asked for an email for tracking usage.? We have received very little apprehension from visitors to share this info.? Our on campus dining department…

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1. Like Ali, we also use PantrySoft. We collect strictly demographic information (name, email, ethnicity, gender, etc) which hasn’t shown to be a barrier for students on our campus.

   2.? We have a professional clothing closet on campus. We were fortunate that there was a closet space available next door to our pantry that we could use. We…

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We have a low-barrier check-in process at our pantry so we know how many individuals and families we’re serving. Our staff are available to share information about other resources in the community, and they help to establish a welcoming atmosphere and a sense of community among returning shoppers. We also have a more grab-and-go satellite. We…

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Great questions – thanks for starting us off! I’m SO glad we have this space to connect.?

1. We offer 6 “Grab & Go” locations – these are satellite pantries across campus that are not monitored, just restocked weekly by our team. We then have 2 walk-in spaces which have specified open shopping hours. We just began PantrySoft to monitor…

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Hello everyone,?

First of all, thank you for starting this!?

I am curious if other campuses are also hesitant to start monitoring their pantry spaces such as a check-in system and staffing? We have student staff that manage inventory, keep the space clean and accessible, and monitor notes left on a white board but otherwise we don’t keep track…

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