A recent College Student Health Survey has revealed that in the past year more than one in seven Minnesota college students ran out of food and the money to buy more of it — and about 25 percent of students said they had worried about the same thing happening to them.
Things were slightly better than average at the University of Minnesota, where only 10.2 percent of students surveyed had run out of food and 17.5 percent had worried about running out of it. Nevertheless, when “better than average” still means that one in 10 students has nothing to eat, the school has a serious problem to address.
With tuition and housing costs increasing, University students are forced to make more and more sacrifices in order to stay financially solvent. Food shouldn’t be a sacrifice they have to make.
Schools like Augsburg and the Minneapolis Community & Technical College have implemented food banks that allow students to supplement their diets with a number of free items. We believe the University would do well to open a food bank for its students, too.
The Twin Cities area is a hub for major corporations. We urge the University or any aspiring students interested in starting a food bank to contact representatives of companies such as General Mills, Land O’ Lakes or Hormel to determine whether any of these companies would be interested in stocking a campus food bank in exchange for the publicity that doing so would provide.
