Episode 149: Swipe Out Hunger Takes On College Student Hunger
About the Podcast
Swipe Out Hunger is the leading nonprofit addressing hunger and food insecurity among college students. They connect the dots so students can attain their basic needs and focus on their future. Jaime Hansen, their executive director, is here today to share more about their movement that reaches all 50 states and Canada and has served 4.8 million nutritious meals to date.
About Jaime Hansen
Jaime Hansen is the Executive Director at Swipe Out Hunger. With over 20 years in the community benefit sector, Jaime has worked with national, state, and multi-county agencies to achieve stability and mission-driven success. Jaime currently resides in Boise, Idaho — a state with a strong agricultural community but large barriers to food and nutrition access. Her passion for justice and equity for basic needs is shaped by her childhood. With nomadic parents, she was offered an opportunity to live in different states across the country. Jaime has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychological Sciences as well as a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and returns to school every fall to teach Nonprofit Management at Boise State University. You can often find Jaime in the vast wilderness of Idaho on a raft or in snowshoes. She loves all things food and regularly experiments in cooking with her partner Xanti, a 6-year-old with dance fever, two young dogs and two old cats.
Discussion Takeaways
- Swipe Out Hunger works with almost 600 colleges nationally, supporting anti-hunger programming, such as campus food pantries, basic need hubs and meal swipe drives, and elevating student and campus voices through anti-hunger advocacy efforts.
- While many people think college is a privilege, it is difficult to provide for a household and disrupt the cycle of poverty without accessing higher education.
- The demographic of today’s college students is very different than the traditional perception of who many think college students are. The average age of college students across the US is 26, and 1 in 3 college students are caregivers, with at least one dependent living in their household.
- Swipe Out Hunger is committed to recognizing the uniqueness of each college campus they work with, and building supporting services that honor that uniqueness.
- Swipe Out Hunger’s flagship program is Meal Swipe programming.
- Swipe Out Hunger’s founder worked at UCLA and noticed that many meal swipes were going unused by students, while other students did not have enough meal swipes in their meal plan and as a result were experiencing hunger. A system was devised in which students could donate unused meal swipes to other students. This flagship program began in 2010.
- In November 2021, Swipe Out Hunger launched Meal Swipe Plus Programming after acquiring the College and University Food Bank Alliance. This acquisition led to adding campus food pantries and basic needs hubs to their repertoire of work.
- Anonymity and accessibility create a dignified atmosphere of receiving food assistance—the meal swipe programming preserves both those aspects of dignity.
- The demographics of college students experiencing food insecurity is vast, and they experience barriers accessing food assistance.
- Many college students are ineligible to receive SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits because of the regulations of the program.
- Additionally many colleges are ineligible to partner with Feeding America to receive free or low cost foods because they are not 501(3)cs. This inability to partner makes it challenging for college campuses to provide free food for students.
- To preserve dignity, it is essential to consider how we allow people to ask for help and what space is given to encourage them to ask for help.
- Higher education institutions are realizing that students need a holistic support system. Institutions are shifting toward creating infrastructure to provide basic need support, including housing, clothing, mental health services, medical services and utilities assistance.
- Swipe Out Hunger’s advocacy efforts focus on Hunger Free Campus Legislation. This policy has provided $100 million to campuses nationwide to help them alleviate campus food insecurity. It has been critical in enabling college campuses to budget for resources, like staffing, infrastructure, food costs and communication, to support students with food assistance.
- Swipe Out Hunger places a high value on centering the voices of individual’s lived experiences. More so, they value compensating individuals for their contributions, efforts and sharing their stories of lived experience.
- Solving complex issues- like hunger—requires an uncomfortable proximity to the issue.
- Swipe Out Hunger also values resource sharing, as a way to collaborate. They realize they are one part of the solution and recognize many other organizations are working toward the same goal. When organizations and groups collaborate and pursue the same goal, the possibilities are vast.
- To influence decision makers, consider the values of the campus and community. Build a relationship with decision makers, using data and stories as tools for instigating change.
- Doing work through a food dignity lens requires looking at programs, services and messaging in light of vulnerability, and considering the importance of making everyone feel welcome. This is challenging work because it requires significant introspection.
- Meal Swipe programming can be offered through all types of mediums, depending on the different technological capabilities of campuses, whether it is through a POS system, an excel tracking sheet or anything in between.
#1 tip to improve access to healthy food
Center the voices of those with lived experiences. They will offer solutions that will be instrumental to solving hunger.
Each week on the Food Dignity® Podcast, the Food Dignity® Movement's Clancy Harrison hosts a wide variety of hunger experts and other people making changes on the frontlines. Join us as we dive deep into conversations that will change the way you think about food insecurity.
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