UNC to launch meal swipe donation program to address food insecurity on campus

With former UNC Student Body President Jaleah Taylor’s time at UNC ending this spring, she is leaving her peers with the meal swipe donation program, set to be implemented in the 2025-26 academic year. 

The program aims to combat food insecurity on campus through a partnership between Student Government, Carolina Dining Services, the Dean of Students office and the campus community.

The meal swipe donation plan will enable students to donate a meal swipe to others who are in need of swipes through the homepage of the GET Mobile app. Students who want to request swipes can do so by completing a care referral form, which is sponsored by the DOS office. 

During the fall 2024 semester, Student Government launched a survey to indicate students’ overall awareness of food insecurity, which received 500 responses. According to the survey, 32 percent of respondents said they have struggled with food insecurity at UNC.

Ella Howie, executive manager of the Office of the Student Body President, said that the survey contained open-ended questions surrounding food insecurity. She described the issue as not just a lack of access to food, but also not having a diet for a healthy life.

“Freshman year, I definitely found myself food insecure, just not having access to a car to get off campus and only having dining halls to rely on and the Target on Franklin Street,” Howie said. “It’s hard to live off of that. So that was kind of my inspiration for joining this.”

Howie, alongside Taylor and Sidney Curtis, UNC Policy Action on Food Insecurity Committee chair, presented the initiative to the Board of Trustees on Jan. 22. She said that they received overwhelming support from the BOT, saying that they didn’t realize food security was a big issue on campus.

According to the survey results, 96 percent of survey respondents stated that they supported giving their left-over swipes to the donation program. Eleven percent of respondents indicated they run out of food swipes before the end of the semester.  

“Especially toward the end of the semester, when there are finals and people are spending hours and hours and hours in the library studying, it's really important to have access to food,” sophomore Malcolm Douglas said. 

While Taylor’s team brought forth the plan to the BOT, the lineage of food security initiatives at the University is long. In 2014, Carolina Cupboard, a student initiative, established a food pantry in Avery Residence Hall. Food pantries have multiplied on campus to meet the needs of students, including the establishment of CJ’s Cupboard located at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. 

Edible Campus, which created 11 gardens with crops available for anyone's taking, was created in 2015. 

CDS donates funds to each of the food security initiatives and DOS acts as an initial referral point for students and takes the lead on the Carolina Food Pantry Network. 

“We just wanted to enhance the work that the University was already doing," Taylor said. "And what better way to do that than to have it be essentially a student-run system where students are recognizing that this is a problem on campus, and they're signing up to donate, and that's just something that I'm proud to have been a part of."

Adolfo Alvarez, the UNC 2025-26 student body president, wrote in a statement to The Daily Tar Heel that he is proud of Taylor’s administration for initiating and advocating for the program.

“We are hoping to continue monitoring the implementation of the meal donation swipe program and working to address other food concerns, including the availability of cultural cuisine in dining halls and the support networks for food pantries and mutual aid groups around campus,” Alvarez wrote.

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