Although students may not be on campus for their regularly scheduled courses, food insecurity knows no schedule.

According to the United States Government Accountability Office, food insecurity among college students is around 30%, and according to Feeding America, nearly 278,000 people in West Virginia are facing hunger.

These statistics are why the Marshall food pantry remains open year-round despite less students being in the area at this time of the year, said Eva Rhodes, the pantry’s graduate director. 

“When I first started working there, we had maybe like 75 individuals come and shop through and maybe like 35 to 40 households,” she said. 

“Now, the highest we’ve gone is about 275 households, and we’ve hit like a thousand individual people,” she added.

Having served as the student director for three years now, Rhodes said aside from a slight increase around the holidays, the numbers remain steady at the food pantry regardless of the season, with about half of the attendees being students and the other half being community members.

As a graduate student studying dietetics, Rhodes said she brings her knowledge of the importance of nutrition from the classroom to the pantry.

“Our goal is just ultimately to provide good, nutritious food to folks because it doesn’t matter,” she said. “No matter your income or where you’re at in life, you should be able to have good, healthy options.” 

Regardless of income, students may shop at the food pantry once a week, and community members may shop once a month. Even so, Rhodes said she often hears of students avoiding the food pantry due their status.

“A lot of students are like, ‘Well, I don’t need it as much as someone else does,’” she said. “And it’s like, well, we plan for an amount of people, and the food is going to be there whether you come and get it or not.”

While the food pantry itself has not yet seen any changes due to cuts in federal funding, Rhodes said she has already seen changes for pantry attendees who are also recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

“They can’t even live off of them for one week, let alone a whole month of benefits,” she said. “I think it’s really going to become harder to source food, and there’s going to be more people really needing more help. I can definitely see that within the next year.”

As of now, Rhodes said the pantry employees are remaining optimistic, as they look toward gaining more attendees with the grand opening of the food pantry’s new location, which should occur at the beginning of the fall semester.

“The way the new setup is going to be, it’s going to look like an actual grocery store,” Rhodes said. “I’m super excited to introduce the whole, like, instead of picking up a food box, you can actually shop for yourself – within limits, picking up what you need. It’s not as scary as it seems.”

The food pantry will be open from 4:30-7:30 p.m. every Tuesday this summer.

Baylee Parsons can be contacted at [email protected].