By Charlie Wailes | Reporter
Many college students struggle with being hungry and finding time to eat. The Fridge at Baylor aims to eliminate food insecurity among the student population.
The Fridge has 11 locations around campus, at places such as the McLane Student Life Center, Moody Memorial Library, the Beauchamp Addiction Recovery Center, George W. Truett Theological Seminary and the Multicultural Affairs office in the Bill Daniel Student Center. The program launched in 2018 and provides free snacks to any students who need them.
Lauren da Silva, food security program manager for The Fridge, said The Fridge has expanded to different areas around campus, with different departments working together to solve the issue of food insecurity.
“Every department that has a fridge noticed a need and wanted to do something about it,” da Silva said. “This is bigger than just one department.”
da Silva said students have responded well to The Fridge.
“Students started leaving us notes, thanking us for the work we do with The Fridges,” da Silva said. “One of the fridges we have in Moody is overseen by Smith Getterman, and he has a box at the top of his station where students are allowed to leave requests for desired items.”
From the beginning, The Fridge was designed to help students. However, it evolved over time to better accommodate them, da Silva said.
“The Fridge started as an extension of what we do at the food pantry,” da Silva said. “We were noticing students would come down, just looking for something they could eat right now on campus. Freshmen especially don’t want a can of beans or rice. The Fridge was created to make a grab-and-go type situation.”
da Silva said the project hasn’t been without flaws, and there have been a few obstacles that have slowed it down.
“One of the things that I’ve identified that we could do much better is marketing to students who need the work we do,” da Silva said. “How The Fridge project works is a faculty or staff member in different buildings adopt The Fridge and are maintained by the staff. The food varies from location to location. In speaking to the staff, sometimes we struggle to keep up with the demands.”
That wasn’t the only issue da Silva acknowledged, as she said COVID-19 posed challenges to the program.
“The pandemic was a massive challenge, and it was a challenge to get the funding and permission to set them up,” da Silva said. “Getting everything launched — and our grant funding fell through because of the pandemic — was definitely a challenge.”
da Silva said she has noticed it can be difficult for a student struggling with food insecurity to ask for help.
“I think we could do better as a school, not pathologizing needing help,” da Silva said. “I think in a culture that pathologizes weakness, for students who need basic support, that kind of shame can be debilitating and isolating. The Fridge’s value is getting help when you need it, even if it’s something as small as having something to eat.”
Jeremy Everett, executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, works with Baylor administrators who set up The Fridge. He said the project was based on an idea from students.
“Some students had the idea, and faculty realized this was a great way to support college students in an anonymous way,” Everett said. “There shouldn’t be any shame in grabbing bread and peanut butter and jelly.”
Everett said food insecurity is something he works to try and resolve daily as part of his job.
“The Baylor collaborative — our job is to create solutions,” Everett said. “And whether that’s a child who doesn’t have nutrition at home or you’re a college student who can’t afford to buy groceries, it’s about how we address hunger in a comprehensive way. We know that a hungry student can’t learn.”
Everett said his team has heard positive feedback on The Fridge as well.
“Our team is led by Cara Cliburn Allen and has led a lot of the work and research about food insecurity on Baylor’s campus,” Everett said. “They did some qualitative studies on what has and has not worked in regard to food insecurity.”
Cliburn Allen, assistant director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, is currently in the process of writing a book about food insecurity on college campuses that are considered affluent. She said due to the affluent status of these universities, it is often assumed that no students struggle with food insecurity, though many do.
“I’m working on a book in partnership with Nathan Alleman, who is a faculty member here at Baylor,” Cliburn Allen said. “We are studying the intersection of food insecurity on college campuses that are selective and affluent. We’re trying to shed light on how food insecurity impacts the student experience and what can be changed in the student environment to make it more hospitable to everyone.”
Cliburn Allen said The Fridge helps lessen the burden of struggling students.
“The Fridge is about ensuring that college students can be full participants in the Baylor campus environment, and so if they need to study late, they have food, just like everyone else,” Cliburn Allen said.
