Walsh students and faculty continue to proactively address issues of hunger and food insecurity locally and around the world. As a part of this ongoing initiative, a group of Walsh freshman students have launched a new program to combat hunger issues on campus. The creation of the Cavs Cave Campus Pantry will focus on college students who are facing food insecurity.
Click here to read the Canton Repository article: Food Pantry for Students Opens at Walsh
Fox 8 Cleveland News: Walsh University Food Pantry Ensures Students do not Attend Class Hungry
Spearheaded by Walsh freshman students Tara Ebert and Mattison Davis, the new Cavs Cave Campus Pantry hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday, October 22, at the University’s Saint Katharine Drexel House, which is home to the University’s Campus Ministry department. The Cavs Cave Campus Pantry will be open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., for food-insecure students to request specific food items, no questions asked. To commemorate World Food Day on Wednesday October 16, the student organizers held a food drive on campus and showcased a series of short films called “The Faces of Hunger” in the Marlene and Joe Toot Global Learning Center Atrium.
This is just one example of new initiatives in Walsh’s commitment to fight hunger. The Walsh University student-led Community Kitchen organization was created several years ago but has grown this year to include the collaboration with the resident members of the Brothers of Christian Instruction. Every two weeks, Walsh students work alongside the FIC Brothers in the kitchen of La Mennais Hall to prepare meals to transport and serve at the Alliance Catholic Worker hospitality house. More than 30 students are a part of this organization overseen by Walsh’s Vice President of Mission Implementation Miguel Chavez. The group cooks and serves meals every second Sunday and every fifth Monday of the month.
This past October, the University hosted the Third Annual Ohio Hunger Dialogue welcoming more than Walsh welcomed more than 140 participants for the Dialogue, including students from 12 different colleges and 25 community organizations such as the Stark County Hunger Taskforce, Akron Canton Foodbank, StarkFresh, Stark County Health Department and the Hunger Network of Cleveland.
For the past couple of years, the Walsh Food Design Institute has also been actively involved in facilitating the development of the Stark County Food Council. Walsh has hosted the Stark County Food Council formation meetings. In addition, the Food Design Institute is part of the “Project Eat Celebrating a Year of Food in Stark County.” This collaboration is a branding campaign with area organizations including the McKinley Museum, the Massillon Museum and StarkFresh. Project Eat highlights the wide range of activities and food events in Stark County in 2019. Walsh students in Professor Vokoun’s Graphic Design courses were responsible for branding the project. Their work will be on display this fall in the Birk Center in an exhibit entitled Project Eat.
