PACK Meal Share program works to resolve food insecurity at NC State

Mark Mikhail Correspondent

NC State’s Academic and Student Affairs offers many food and housing resources to students through Pack Essentials. One of these resources is the PACK Meal Share program, which donates guest meals from students’ meal plans to students facing food insecurity.

The PACK Meal Share program is run in collaboration between Student Government, NC State Dining and the Ombuds program. The program’s goal is to curb temporary food insecurity crises through donating unused guest meal swipes from the Flex Meal Plans offered through NC State Dining.

According to Jennifer Gilmore, director of marketing and communications for Campus Enterprises, the idea for the program came from Student Government in 2018.

“I think that Student Government approached us during that time,” Gilmore said. “We looked at what we could feasibly do and we all landed on the guest meal aspect of the meal plans, and put it in place that year.”

Although the program is very much a collaborative effort, student involvement did not end with the creation of the program. McKenzy Heavlin, a graduate student in electrical engineering and student body president, said students are still a fundamental part of the program’s identity.

“The way that Student Government is connected with this initiative is that we essentially provide the individual support and the volunteer stations,” Heavlin said. “We’ll also go to tables, like the dining halls, and so there’ll be Student Government members at the dining halls who will kind of ask people to donate their guests meal swipes, [and] any questions that students have about the program, Student Government really is trying to facilitate the answer portion of that.”

Heavlin said applying to participate in PACK Meal Share is fairly simple.

“If I needed food, I would go and submit an application [in Pack Essentials], they try to get back to you in 24 hours, at least they’re really really responsive, and once they follow up with you, they’ll have kind of an initial comfort consultation, and then they’ll be the ones to like physically allocate out,” Heavlin said. “It’s a pretty streamlined process, and they do a really good job of making sure to respond to students in a timely manner, especially for food insecurity so that students aren’t going hungry.”

The program is also completely anonymous, a quality that Gilmore said is ex- tremely important to the students.

“When it’s been programmed onto their ID card, and they can just come and blend in and feel where they can just blend in and eat with everyone else,” Gilmore said. “That’s how we want people to feel that they’re getting that support that they need, but not having a lot of attention drawn to them.”

The donation process is personalized and is easy for those who want to donate as well. Students who are on the flex meal plan and are eligible to donate will receive an email at the end of the semester. The goal of the program each semester is to receive anywhere from 1200-1500 donations a semester. That goal has already been achieved this semester.

Heavlin said he hopes the program also provides students with knowledge about the food insecurity many students experience at NC State.

“That’s the other portion of the program that I really appreciate is it really starts a dialogue between students about what food insecurity is and what it looks like here at NC State, and how they can kind of combat that from their individual stance as a student,” Heavlin said.

For more information about PACK Meal Share, check out dasa.ncsu.edu