Winona State University can proudly announce that it is now a hunger-free campus. Throughout Oct 21-25, the Warrior Cupboard hosted a food drive to collect donations and food.
Locations for the drive were collected at the end of the week at various locations like the Darrell W. Krueger Library room 110, Gildemeister room 116B, Maxwell room 130, the Retiree Center, and Rochester CCSS room 123.
“I always think about food insecurity as something that is really easy to solve. We have the food, we just need to get it to the right people,” Warrior Cupboard Coordinator Aurea Osgood said. “You can see the difference between students who are hungry in class and those who aren’t.”
The cupboard located in the Integrated Wellness Complex serves as a supplemental on-campus food shelf for WSU students. To access the cupboard located in room 130, a form on Warrior Space is available to any student with any type of level of need.
Fourth year student Joni Johnson is finishing her degree in social work and has volunteered her time at the Warrior Cupboard booth from the Game Day Experience on Oct. 26 before Winona State faced off against Bemidji State University.
“One of my professors introduced me to the Warrior Cupboard, so I use it. And there was an opportunity to be on the Warrior Cupboard advisory board team…I utilize the Warrior Cupboard, with my going back to school and being a non-traditional student. I have to work a 40-hour week and I struggle to make ends meet,” Johnson said. “I love the community aspect of everybody here for a common reason…I want to give back, so here I am giving back.”
The goal for the food drive was to collect a thousand dollars in food and cash. In addition, Winona State President Kenneth Jan has committed to donate a dollar for every food item donated. Osgood commented that President Janz has been a great supporter of the Cupboard.
“You can always donate through the Winona State Foundation on their website, and we have a campaign site with the foundation right now as well,” Osgood said. “Our goal for this month is to raise $12,000, and that gets us about half the way through the year buying food for our students.”
The Cupboard relies on support from students, staff and the community. The Cupboard receives a small amount of funding from students fees, but more than two-thirds of the support is from donations.
“I’m just so excited that we have this great group of students with our new student food and security advisory team, and they’ve been great advocates for us,” Osgood said. “We just got a Hunger-Free Campus designation this year for the first time, and so that is our call to action. We’re going to have this title. We’ve got to show it.”
To continue to support the Warrior Cupboard, join them for their fundraiser at Qdoba and Toppers on Tuesday, Nov. 5 from 5-8 PM.
