The staff and volunteers at the Spartan Open Pantry are incredibly grateful for the incredible support that has allowed us to distribute 54,754 pounds of food during the 2023-2024 school year. The pantry has remained busy this summer, distributing between 800 and 1200 pounds weekly. At the end of this summer, we expect to have distributed 24% more food than last year! We could only have achieved this remarkable growth with our partnership with Second Harvest Food Banks of Northeast NC.

Our staff has been giving new students tours of the pantry, answering their questions, and distributing information during SOAR. We believe it’s crucial for students to know about the pantry resources available to them and understand that reaching out for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

We are currently working to raise additional funds to increase the hours the SOP can distribute food next semester. Our current hours (Tuesday 5-9 pm and Wednesday 9 am – 1 pm & 5-9 pm) will not be sufficient to serve the number of students we expect to be utilizing the pantry. A survey in Spring 2024 gave us a snapshot of the current struggle of UNC Greensboro students. 39% percent of respondents reported that they had experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in the previous 30 days. About 4% of our students had gone for a day or more without access to food. If our fundraising goals are reached this summer we will increase from 12 to 20 hours per week.

The SOP to GO has expanded its reach by adding two more cabinets, bringing the total number of mini-pantry locations across the campus to seven. We thank the Division of Student Affairs for their support in providing new, more accessible glass cabinets. We are particularly excited about the new cabinet in the Office of Intercultural Engagement area, which will offer a more diverse selection of foods.