Sense of Community
Bear Pantry
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The Bear Pantry challenges conceptions of what food insecurity looks like
In 2018, a grad student at Missouri State found that more than a third of college students were food insecure. A year later, that research project developed into the Bear Pantry, a place where undergrads, graduate students and faculty could access healthy foods for free. Today, the Bear Pantry continues to grow, adapting to the needs of a population that experiences stigma especially acutely.
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Sense of Community is a local public television program presented by OPT
Sense of Community
Bear Pantry
Clip | 2m 20sVideo has Closed Captions
In 2018, a grad student at Missouri State found that more than a third of college students were food insecure. A year later, that research project developed into the Bear Pantry, a place where undergrads, graduate students and faculty could access healthy foods for free. Today, the Bear Pantry continues to grow, adapting to the needs of a population that experiences stigma especially acutely.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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[MUSIC PLAYING] ALEX JOHNSON: The Bear Pantry opened its doors in spring of 2019.
We were seeing at that time that close to 36% of students at four-year institutions were facing food insecurity or didn't have consistent access to healthy foods.
And so we started brainstorming ways that we at Missouri State could start to provide some of that access to basic needs.
Logistically, our main goal is to get food in the hands of people who need it.
And so we have this great partnership with Ozarks Food Harvest and have had that for the last few years now.
They've been an amazing resource for us.
We run a client choice model food pantry.
So folks come in to the space just like they would a grocery store or convenience store and choose items that they need.
When we developed The Bear Pantry, we wanted to create as few barriers as possible to access for folks.
And what we were seeing in the literature was that students can associate negative stigma to utilizing something like a food pantry.
So we want to make it as open as possible so folks feel comfortable utilizing the space.
NATALIE BARBIERI: One thing I love about this job is being able to have that interaction with students who are impacted by it each week.
One thing that is surprising to some people is that, like, all students come to use the pantry.
Like, there is no one type of person that comes to use the pantry.
It's like so many people come and utilize it because they need it.
There have been several people that have just thanked me or have been like, thank you so much for what you're doing with The Bear Pantry.
Like, this is my food for the week and I couldn't live without it.
Seeing and hearing people come and pick up food and also just speak about how much it helps them out is, yeah, it's huge, and it's eye-opening, too.
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Sense of Community is a local public television program presented by OPT