On October 5, the Student Honors Organization (SHO) hosted a “Prof. Talk” where Dr. Brewer, the campus chaplain, presented on hunger and food insecurity on college campuses. He also invited Xypher Pino and me to talk about the Collegiate Hunger Challenge. 

Dr. Brewer started the presentation with some questions that relate to food insecurity myths. For instance, the first question was, “Can you tell someone is food insecure just by looking at them?” Although the myth would suggest that you can tell someone is food insecure by their appearance, Dr. Brewer claimed this is not always true. Dr. Brewer said, “Someone who is food insecure may act like they have it all together so as to not draw attention to themselves by their peers or their family.”  

The second slide was Dr. Brewer diving into what we have done, as a campus, to help negate the effects of food insecurity on our campus. Some things he listed were starting up the GC Pride Pantries, partnering with UNCG’s Spartan Open Pantry and becoming involved in NC Campus Engagement, an organization meant to inspire campuses to make a change in their community.  

The third slide involved the Pride Pantries locations, which are located outside of the Greensboro residence hall, inside the Global Communications Center (GCC) and in West residence hall. 

Dr. Brewer’s fourth slide was about who is using our pantries. Dr. Brewer used statistics collected from our pantries to visualize who was using them. He discussed three main groups: the student’s year, gender and race. Overall, Dr. Brewer concluded that seniors and freshman, female-identifying students and students who are African American or Caucasian have used the pantry the most.  

The fifth slide was Dr. Brewer’s advice for those who have students coming to them with food insecurity concerns. He presented that these people should show empathy to the student, avoid judgment and make the student aware of resources available on campus. Dr. Brewer also made a point that food insecurity can impact other things, such as mental health, studying habits and physical health. After this slide, Dr. Brewer summed up all his information and points onto one last slide. 

Xypher Pino and I made a small addition to his presentation at the end that involved The Collegiate Hunger Challenge. We talked about what The Collegiate Hunger Challenge is, what the prize is for winning and how others can get involved.  

Overall, this was a great experience and, even after working very closely with Dr. Brewer, I learned a lot from his presentation. If you missed this event, check out the recorded version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlUzJjkc5k0