Food share cabinets bring nourishment to campus

Focus requires fuel. When Kurt Hoffman, director of undergraduate studies in the psychology department, noticed grumbling tummies during final exam season, his team set out to provide granola bars for students.

“What started as just offering a little pick me up at the end of the semester grew into a focused effort.” 

Hoffman enrolled as one of the first members of the Virginia Tech Food Share Coalition.

The birth of the Food Share Coalition

Virginia Tech successfully launched The Market of Virginia Tech in 2020 — a centralized, institutionalized food assistance program made possible by generous donations from alumni and run by Student Affairs.

But when “mini-markets” began popping up around the Blacksburg campus, an opportunity for additional support emerged.

A service-learning partnership was born when Izzy Largen, assistant director for Food Access Initiatives at VT Engage, partnered with Rachael Budowle, a faculty member in the Honors College, to address this growing need. Budowle leveraged her previous work at the University of Wyoming and participation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded collaboration The Justice Challenge to offer a Food Justice Design Challenge course.

With Largen’s mentorship, students in Budowle’s course produced a food share cabinet tool kit: a step-by-step guide, including sign and email templates, to support units to launch their own food share cabinets, independently and at scale.

“The tool kit supports distributed food access efforts, amplifying The Market’s centralized work,” said Budowle.

Ranging from small baskets of grab-and-go snacks to fully stocked pantries, food share cabinets emerged as a decentralized model to broaden food access support across the university's campuses, with each cabinet tailored to its building’s population.

This challenge directly seeded the Food Share Coalition, formally established by VT Food Access. Though the coalition is decentralized, the VT Food Access team heavily supports the over two dozen food share cabinets, located in Blacksburg and at Academic Building One in Alexandria. Everything from answering questions, restocking five to eight kits per week, creating template materials, and responding to emerging needs. “We also provide biweekly office hours, biweekly onboarding sessions, and convene the coalition twice a semester for whole-coalition meetings,” said Largen.

Sharing means caring

“The Food Share Coalition operates on a sharing-economy philosophy — open to all without eligibility requirements, trusting users to take what they need, whether for hunger or just a snack between classes,” said Anna Zeide, founding director of the Food Studies Program in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Zeide and food science Professor Courtney Irene Powell Thomas co-lead the coordinated food share cabinet network in their college, a department-based stocking rotation shared among each of the departments housed in Major Williams Hall. “Each department is responsible for stocking the cabinet for one assigned month, either via physical goods or virtual payments,” said Zeide.

The initial stocking kit is provided by The Market and is replenishable up to six times per semester. Though the cabinets are primarily easy-prep meal focused, signage is in place to direct students with greater needs toward The Market.

Cabinet shelving is intentionally tiered: top shelves for grab-and-go snacks, bottom shelves for take-home items like canned soup. Top shelves generally see the most usage. Some cabinets also offer toiletries and hygenie products. 

Mapping out success

Brenna Demko '26, who studied geography, found that her GIS skills proved directly applicable to food insecurity work, putting the lessons learned in Budowle’s course into action through a summer internship, where she refined the tool kit and charted the scope of the coalition. “I was able to map resources and help students find support,” she said. Now serving as the student director for The Market, Demko said she also found her people.

 “My involvement with The Market and food security initiatives at Virginia Tech has helped me find my place here and given me a way to contribute to my new community."

Demko offers ongoing support by hosting onboarding sessions, preparing restock kits, and creating a user-friendly map to help students locate food share cabinets.

Variety is the spice

Students are indeed the backbone of the program, with many working alongside faculty members to garner contributions and make sure cabinets stay well-stocked through the ebbs and flows of the semester.

“We want this to be an opportunity for students to learn about nutrition and health promotion, while also providing a service and supporting other students,” said Sarah Misyak, assistant director of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Family Nutrition Program in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise.

Two human nutrition, foods, and exercise students went so far as to create spring break baskets, funded by a small grant from University Libraries, to ensure students would be taken care of during a time when it can be harder to access food.

Emma Jennings, a nutrition and dietetics intern, made sure to include basic staples such as rice and potatoes, as well as plant-based proteins, such as lentils.

“We wanted to put together an enjoyable meal that they could build on, so we added spices and seasonings and gave them ideas for other things to add, too,” said Jennings.

Kimberly Keener, nutrition counselor and graduate student in the Master of Science in nutrition and dietetics program, said in gathering resources for clients, she was inspired by other food share cabinets around the Blacksburg campus and jumped at the chance to start one in her own department.

“The Food Share Coalition provided a useful tool kit covering food safety, stock and supply, and even outreach strategies,” Keener said. 

This stocked pantry now includes bars, shelf-stable soy milks, ready-to-eat meals, and cereals, all funded through a mix of faculty pickups, donations, and Food Share Coalition kits.

“We try to pay attention to what’s being used the most and make sure to have healthy options where we can.”

Getting creative

Food share cabinets are as creative as they are clutch. Even though many courses include information about food access on the syllabus, food share cabinet locations are often semi-private in order to reduce stigma. A current challenge is balancing awareness with availability.

“Consistency is the primary goal,” said Hoffman, who is working with colleague Kaylee Brady to try and maintain a steady, reliable stock level between restocking cycles. Brady also reaches out to the department through weekly “Foodie Friday" emails to drive contributions.

Students in Thomas's Food Politics class ran food drives in their residence halls as hands-on class projects, generating enough contributions to stock the food share cabinet upon launch — without the need for an initial kit.

During an upcoming production from the School of Performing Arts, students will take an opportunity to collect contributions for their cabinet.

Moment to moment

“Food security is a community issue, not just a targeted aid program,” said Budowle. “The coalition’s ethos centers on dignity and shared access with the principle that anyone may experience food insecurity at any point in their lives.”

Garry Morgan, interim director of student services at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, echoed this philosophy. “Food access is a moment-to-moment need," he said. ''The pantry exists to support our community at any such moment without stigma.” For Morgan's students, "Pantry visibility starts at orientation, with a scavenger hunt."

Meanwhile, fundraising in support of food security for Virginia Tech students is a yearlong affair. Those interested in supporting The Market of Virginia Tech can give online.