The Food for Fines campaign raised almost 13,000 donations for the Field and Fork food pantry on campus.
The 12,900 donations to a University of Florida food pantry to forgive 2,600 parking citations will last beyond the spring semester, pantry staff said.
UF held a campaign the first week of April in which parking citations would be forgiven with a donation of five items for the Field and Fork food pantry on campus.
About 500 UF students can’t afford a nutritious meal at some point during their time in school, said Anna Prizzia, program director and campus food systems coordinator. That’s 10 percent of the student body and doesn’t include the faculty or staff members who experience food insecurity, too.
Food insecurity is a lack of reliable access to nutritious foods on a regular basis, Prizzia said. About 200 people visit the pantry each week, she said, and most are students.
A survey showed 10 percent of the student body experienced food insecurity, Prizzia said, and the survey has recently been completed again. The results are to likely be available by the summer, she said.
Stephanie Muench, a Care Area staff member in the Dean of Students Office, said the donations will get the pantry through the spring semester and likely part of the summer.
“The pantry looks completely different from when it did a month ago,” she said.
The pantry doesn’t record a user’s demographics; workers confirm that the user has a valid UF ID.
Most pantry users are circumstantial, Prizzia said. Students come when they’re waiting for their financial aid to be applied, when they need to pay tuition or rent or when their cash flow is otherwise limited.
“Everybody’s circumstances are different,” Prizzia said.
“We don’t see a lot of repeat visits on a week-to-week basis,” she added.
Muench said the most popular items in the food pantry are grains and protein sources, like meats and beans.
“They fill you up,” she said.
The pantry offers nonperishable foods, toiletries, produce and sometimes frozen meat. It accepts donations of nonperishable foods and toiletries, but the produce comes from the Field and Forks garden, and the meat is donated by a distributor. This ensures the meat hasn’t been frozen, thawed and refrozen.
The Food for Fines campaign led to the pantry’s largest single donation to date, Muench said: 13,400 pounds.
