Students donate dining points to help others in need

 

On Jan. 22, Dining Services announced a new plan to combat food insecurity on campus. Alongside three other groups, Dining Services is implementing a new dining system called Cougar Cares. The program will take donated dining points from APU students and give them to students who struggle with food insecurity.

Donations were collected on Jan. 29, and are still being calculated.

According to Sam Samaan, executive director of University Services, a task force will be appointed to decide how to distribute the points. 

“University Services, along with Student Affairs, Student Financial Services and other campus partners, is still in the process of selecting the recipients,” said Samaan. “Recipients will be notified by email within the next couple of weeks.”

These points will then be loaded onto the student I.D. cards of the chosen students under the dining plan, “Cougar Cares.” This plan will work just like any other student plan would, with recipients swiping and using the dining points at any on-campus location. 

Since the recipients have not been chosen yet and the total number of dining points collected has not been tallied, it is difficult to say how many people this plan will help at this time.

The Office of Dining Services encourages students facing food insecurity to reach out to people within the department or other departments they are collaborating with. 

“If students have questions regarding the program, they should contact University Services, myself or Heather Synder,” Samaan said. 

Doma Bowie, a senior social work major and Office of Women’s Development (OWD) intern, works in the food pantry. The pantry is open to anyone struggling with food insecurity. 

Last semester, the pantry helped around 70 students over the course of the semester. This semester the pantry is set to surpass that number, having already helped 20-30 students in the first month, according to Bowie.

Bowie believes the new Cougar Cares dining program will help those facing food insecurity even more than the food pantry already does because it removes the stigma around receiving help to meet a basic need. 

“One of the benefits that [Cougar Cares] has over the food pantry is that it breaks the stigma that people associate with using the food pantry to fill a need … some people get embarrassed when it comes to that,” Bowie said. “But, with Cougar Cares, you just use your points like a normal [student].”

Another event will be held in the fall to collect more dining points. At this time, the office of Dining Services is planning to expand the availability of donations to faculty and staff and is looking for further ways to improve the current program.