Feeding hearts and filling plates in Butler County
By Cory Kroneker
Miami University journalism student
Millions of Americans struggle each day to feed their families. In Ohio, food insecurity affects 1,391,290 people. More than 38,000 of those people are in Butler County.
But when it comes to food insecurity, one population can be overlooked.
College students.
According to data from the 2019–2020 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 22% of undergraduate students in the United States and 12% of graduate students experience food insecurity or homelessness.
That means more than 4 million students across the country have to worry about how to feed themselves while pursuing their studies.
Zoe Duffield, of Swipe Out Hunger, told WOUB News that students who struggle with food insecurity are 40% less likely to finish college.
Miami University students are not immune to this problem. Recent research conducted by graduate students at Miami showed that more than a quarter of grad students have visited local food pantries.
Undergraduate students also struggle with food insecurity and, like the graduate students, often turn to local resources for help.
Karsen Davidson, a junior at Miami University, says that he has been struggling with food insecurity since he came to college. None of his friends are aware of this because he does not talk about it.
TOPSS
The Talawanda Oxford Pantry and Social Services, also known as TOPSS, is one of the community resources students can turn to for help.
Sherry Martin is the executive director for TOPSS, a small nonprofit organization located on College Corner Pike in Oxford. It’s been around since 2007.
“We serve about 400 households weekly. In 2023 we served 1,029 households.” Martin says.
Since its founding, TOPSS has seen a marked increase in the number of people seeking services.
Martin says that they went through a couple of big changes in 2020 which could have played a major role in increasing the pantry’s visibility. TOPSS changed its name so she feels that these things may have made it harder for her to compare pre-COVID and post-COVID demand.
“[TOPSS] went through a lot of changes — a name change and location change all in 2020 as well as an executive director change,” Martin says. “Other things were happening that I feel might have impacted or influenced other things.”
Martin says the organization changed its name because it felt like it needed something catchier. The location change came about because she says TOPSS needed more space. The space is used to prepare, box groceries and for storage of recent food orders and donations.
She says they also wanted people in the community to be able to walk into the space and be able to shop as if they are in an actual grocery store.
“There are some people who can’t read very well, don’t read English, or English is a second language, or can’t see very well to read the list, and those people need to be able to come in and be able to pick out their own food,” Martin says.
Martin says TOPPSS is continuously trying to better serve the community.
Around COVID-19, people would wait in lines for 2 hours before they were able to get the groceries that they needed. Martin says they’ve now put in place a more efficient process. They have also incorporated curbside pickup where volunteers will shop for clients and then once they arrive at TOPSS they receive their groceries and then continue on with their day.
“We’re just really lucky to be, like, right next to a university because I think if we weren’t [located] where we are, it’d be a lot harder,” Martin says.
Martin say’s she’s upset because she has a feeling more people — including students — need resources, but are either afraid or embarrassed to get them.
“The one thing that I would like for students to know is that we deliver,” Martin says.
She says she believes that delivery is a lot more convenient than having to go to the store. TOPPS uses Kroger or Walmart grocery bags so when they deliver, it looks like a normal Instacart delivery, which can lessen the stigma some might feel from visiting the pantry.
Student Success Center
Students who can’t make their way to TOPSS do have a resource on campus they can turn to.
The Student Success Food Pantry is located in the Student Success Center in Nellie Craig Hall. It’s just one of the resources offered to struggling students by the Miami Cares program.
Nancy Stewart is in charge of Miami Cares. The program is designed to help students with basic needs when they are not able to meet them. This includes emergency housing, financial aid, F5 laptop program and food insecurity.
Stewart says that being able to find funding can be challenging and fundraising is a big part of her job.
Something that she says has been very successful in the past has been food drives. At these, people can donate drinks, food or money. The Student Success Center’s food bank also receives funding from a couple different places.
One place is through Make it Miami weekend. Miami University does a lot of fundraising on its website and a very small percentage goes to the Student Success Center for food insecurity.
The biggest investor recently has been Aramark. Aramark has been in charge of food services on campus, including the markets, dining halls and Armstrong Student Center. Stewart says that in their contract they were required to give $10,000 towards food insecurity on campus.
She also says they have other private investors who want to donate to food insecure students and the program.
Miami Cares also gets food donations from Panera Bread.
Stewart says Panera only has so many days to sell their products and when those products reach their sell by date, they are brought to the Student Success Center so they can be put in the food pantry. The food has not gone bad, but legally Panera is not allowed to put it back on its shelves.
That food can then be given out to students who use the campus food pantry.
Stewarts says graduate students use the program more and she fears this is because younger students might not be aware of the program. She also fears that students might not be utilizing their resources because they might feel ashamed, insecure or embarrassed.
She also worries about the experiences of international students at Miami.
“I have a really hard time with some of these graduate and international students because I don’t know what they were told or what expectations they have about America, but it is very expensive to live here,” Stewart says. “There have been times where the university has had to support and pay to fly people back home because they are [at Miami University] and they cannot afford their tuition.”
Lunch-in learns
Nancy Parkinson is a professor in the nutrition program at Miami. She’s implemented a number of different programs in both the Miami University and wider communities.
Every week Parkinson holds lunch-in learns. These are held in an academic building around lunch time. Anyone can come and participate and then try the food.
She provides a sample of the food, ingredients to make it, cooking instructions, as well as door prizes. Parkinson tries to get her students involved at these so there are always at least 2 people demonstrating. She always has one undergraduate dietetics student as well as a graduate dietetics student involved.
This also ties into her pick list that she provides to students. There is a QR code that students can scan that pulls up a Google form. On this Google form is a long list of different foods that students can choose from including grains, fruits and protein.
Once a student submits the form they can then pick a convenient time to pick up the food. Parkinson will have everything the student chose packed in a bag and ready to be taken home.
Another thing Parkinson has coordinated for the community is monthly dinners. These happen at the Oxford Community Center on the first Monday of every month.
These dinners don’t just offer food for the community, she says they’re designed to also offer a place to hangout, talk to others and feel safe. Once COVID-19 happened, people stopped socializing and having this monthly dinner was a way to bring people back together. Parkinson says she continues to organize them because they are such a success.
She says there was a family that would come to all of the dinners, lunch-ins and other programs. The husband worked a full-time job, while the wife was pregnant with their second child. At work, the husband was offered a promotion but he was considering not taking it because the family was applying for food stamps.
“If the guy took a promotion, then they would get less funding from the government,” Parkinson says. “And so, it’s like a backward system.”
Parkinson says she considers this an unfortunate truth and that there are many families that face a similar dilemma. She says people who are struggling to get by can feel stuck when faced with a promotion, because once they start to earn more money, any help they get from the state or federal government dries up.
Ohio college students can also apply for government assistance — such as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program — but it can sometimes be a challenge to get such benefits.
It can be a challenge, too, to take that first step to get help when facing food insecurity. But the people working on the issue in Oxford want college students to know that help is out there and that they should not have to go hungry as they work to build their futures.
