A third of college students don\u2019t know when or where they\u2019ll get their next meal. Swipe Out Hunger, an organization founded by a group of friends at UCLA in 2010, is on a mission to change that.
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The nonprofit has already helped give nearly 2 million nutritious meals to hungry students across 90 colleges and universities in 34 states.
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\u201cOur goal is really to end college student hunger,\u201d Rachel Sumekh<\/a>, Swipe Out Hunger’s founder and CEO, told The University Network. \u201cThe way that we do that is by partnering with universities.\u201d Most often, when Swipe Out Hunger partners with a university, it\u2019s to establish a chapter of its Swipes Drive program, through which students with dining hall plans can donate their extra meal swipes to help feed their low-income peers. Any individual student or student-led group can bring Swipe Out Hunger\u2019s program to their respective campuses. But sometimes, it requires perseverance. Sumekh tells the story of a group of students at the University of Kentucky who were pushing to get a Swipe Out Hunger program started. Their campus administrators kept refusing, but they persisted. \u201c(The students) came to us and said, \u2018we\u2019ve been really nice, we\u2019ve been playing by the rules, we\u2019ve been advocating for months, and we\u2019re not going to take no for an answer. We\u2019re going to go on a hunger strike until they say they\u2019ll approve the program,\u2019\u202f\u201d said Sumekh. Sumekh says, at first, she was a bit hesitant about this idea. She typically advises students against going on a hunger strike, as she worries it’s too extreme, may result in the university getting bad press and, ultimately, not bring a Swipe Out Hunger program to campus. \u201cBut these students, because they are on the ground and see their friends going hungry, they didn\u2019t take that for an answer,\u201d Sumekh said. \u201cThey went on a hunger strike, and within five days they had all of their demands met. Not only did they get a full Swipe Out Hunger program, they also got a full-time staff person to be a basic needs coordinator, and even got a space for students to go to get access to resources.\u201d Student hunger at the University of Kentucky may now be on its way to being solved. But, nationally, there\u2019s still a long way to go. According to a recent study<\/a> conducted by College Pulse, 12 percent of college students will go at least a day without eating, simply because they can\u2019t afford to. And in April, Temple University\u2019s Hope Center surveyed<\/a> almost 86,000 students to find that nearly half of them had experienced food insecurity within the 30 days leading up to the survey. So, Swipe Out Hunger also seeks to address the problem, on a larger scale, by working with lawmakers and companies. The nonprofit authored the Hunger Free Campus Act, which requires colleges and universities to establish food pantries and meal-share programs and to hire full-time staff to help guarantee hungry students have their needs met, among other things. The bill has already passed in California, New Jersey and Minnesota, and sent $20 million to campuses to address student hunger, Sumekh explains. \u201cBasically, it’s the first time that states are recognizing student hunger as an issue, and also putting money behind it to make sure campuses have money to do this work,\u201d said Sumekh. And just last month, Swipe Out Hunger announced three new corporate partnerships with Sodexo, Aramark and CBORD, through which they expect to be able to increase the number of meals they provide to college students by 39 percent in the first year. By way of the partnership, Sodexo — a food services company and the 18th largest employer in the world — is launching a pilot program<\/a> establishing \u201cMeal Swipe Banks\u201d at 13 universities. Sodexo will provide two free meals for every full-time meal plan sold. The company estimates it will result in 25,000 additional free meals each year. Aramark — the second largest food service provider in the United States — partnered with Swipe Out Hunger to fund the nonprofit\u2019s Research and Development Lab<\/a>, which will house research projects crucial to developing innovative solutions to campus hunger. And CBORD — the tech company that operates student ID card services on hundreds of college campuses — is working with Swipe Out Hunger to eliminate the logistical challenges<\/a> of transferring students\u2019 meal swipes. The company is integrating a functionality into its GET CBORD Student app through which students can donate their extra meal swipes. Once meals are donated, they will be pooled and distributed through campus card systems.
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