The Marshall Food Pantry offers food options to students, staff and community members who are facing food insecurity.

Eva Rhodes, the Marshall Food Pantry’s graduate student director, said the pantry offers prospective visitors a wide variety of options.

“Students are available to come once a week, and then community members can come once a month,” Rhodes said. “We offer a lot of shelf-stable stuff like canned goods, boxed goods like mac and cheese, like pasta, rice, that kind of stuff. We also do fresh produce: fruits, veggies, bread. When we can, we do meat, eggs and dairy products, but it’s a little harder to come by now than it was before.”

Rhodes said the food pantry is run entirely by the Marshall Department of Nutrition and Dietetics under the College of Health Professions.

“We’re run entirely by the dietetics department, so our goal is just to provide as much nutritious food as possible to the students free of cost,” Rhodes said. “A lot of our food also comes from the Facing Hunger Food Bank on 7th Ave.”

Rhodes said the Marshall Food Pantry accepts donations of any food item as well as personal hygiene items on request.

“We take just about anything and everything, from the shelf-stable goods to like refrigerated and frozen things. We have storage for that,” Rhodes said. “We also take personal hygiene items upon request, as best we can. We try to accommodate that a lot of times we want just like deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, that kind of stuff.” 

She also said the food pantry doesn’t normally receive goods like canned soup and noodle cups, but they would be greatly appreciated by the student body.

“Items that we don’t normally get that a lot of people will appreciate are like different kinds of canned soup and stuff. Ramen, oats,” Rhodes said. “Sometimes you want your ramen noodles.”

The Marshall Food Pantry also collaborates with various university and student organizations on campus.

“We do a lot of work with the College of Health Professions,” Rhodes said. “We also work with the Student Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and we have various sororities and fraternities that’ll come and volunteer.”

Alongside campus organizations, there are also several local community organizations that the food pantry collaborates with.

“When we’re low on volunteers, we get some folks from Recovery Point, and they’re fantastic,” Rhodes said. “One of our partner agencies, reGen Grab and Go, we work closely with them and swap out food if need be. They’re great as well.”

Rhodes said the food pantry currently services the highest number of individuals it has ever serviced.

“Sometime at the end of last semester, we reached the highest we’ve had, which was about 250 families and 1000 individuals,” Rhodes said. “We’ve definitely grown so much to where I’ve had to hire in other folks because it was just me running it.”

Rhodes said food insecurity has recently become more prevalent on campus.

“It’s pretty significant. I feel like we’ve gotten more and more students even just this semester,” Rhodes said. “It’s hard to just afford food when you’re in college trying to balance your grades and having somewhere to live, you know?” 

Rhodes also spoke about the hesitation and perceived stigma that comes with coming to the food pantry.

“I always try to ease people when they come in, like, ‘Listen, you’re coming out with unlabeled bags,’” Rhodes said. “I shop at the food pantry myself. I know this struggle. They also don’t want to shop first because there’s a lot of like, ‘Oh, well, some people need it more than I do.’ There’s definitely stigma around it, but just know that we have way plenty enough.”

The Marshall Food Pantry’s spring 2025 hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 7 p.m.

Students interested in donating items to the Marshall Food Pantry should reach out by phone or email. The Marshall Food Pantry can be reached at 304-696-2276 or [email protected]. They are located at 1802 6th Ave. 

Ashton Pack can be contacted at [email protected]