Campus Food Shed: Student-led efforts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to support food-insecure peers

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of campus food insecurity, it has often been an issue silent, faceless, and ignored. Only within the last decade has it received recognition as a national crisis (McCoy et al., 2022). Perhaps because college is widely regarded as a privileged endeavor, requiring substantial tuition dollars from students and their families, food insecurity has not received the attention or resources that it deserves. Although policy-level and administrative changes should take the lead in addressing the issue, student-led groups have played a role in initiating action. Campus Food Shed (CFS), a University of Wisconsin-Madison student organization, seeks to address these concerns. Spearheaded by students, the organization partners with local grocery stores and research farms to distribute leftover food items, assisting peers across the UW-Madison campus with access to free, nutritious food. As UW-Madison alumni, our experiences through CFS have brought to our attention nationwide concerns regarding food insecurity (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2017). In addition, studies across the country over the last five years have demonstrated the severity of food insecurity for many college and university students (Baker-Smith et al., 2020; Broton & Cady, 2020; Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2017; Laska et al., 2020; Watson et al., 2017). . . .