Score a touchdown by donating to help diminish food insecurity

Gamma Beta Phi launches Super Bowl-themed drive to collect

nonperishable items for the campus food pantry as its term project

Young woman, dark blond hair, smiling

By Sara M. Walters

Knightly News Reporter

sara.walters@mymail.centralpenn.edu

Food-donation boxes in the inner lobby on the second floor of ATEC. Photo by Michael Lear-Olimpi

Gamma Beta Phi’s food drive, running from Feb. 5 to 25, is Super Bowl-themed to give students, staff, faculty and non-Central Penn community members incentive to donate to the college’s food pantry to keep it stocked.

Four boxes will be placed in the Advanced Technology Education Center (ATEC) for people to put donations into. These boxes will include one for the San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs, the commercials – and one for Usher, the halftime performer.

The donation drive will last for weeks five, six and seven of this term. Gamma Beta Phi is a national honor and service society. Central Penn’s branch will meet on March 7 to put away all the donations.

Hand holding a white paper form with a list of items to donate to the campus food pantry
Types of goods people can donate to the food pantry. Photo by Michael Lear-Olimpi
The campus food pantry. Photo by Sara Walters

“Our college pantry requests … tripled from the fall of 2022 to the fall of 2023,” Lindsay Garber, director of student housing, stated. “Therefore, we needed more funding, so we partnered with the advancement team and the Central Penn Education Foundation to secure a grant to help those in need.”

Quaker, which is owned by Pepsi, donated boxes of granola bars, oatmeal and crackers to the college food pantry in November.

The food pantry is accessible to all Central Penn students: residential, online and commuters. Students can use this link to request items through the Central Penn app and website.

The food pantry was created in 2018 by corporate communications student Morgan Littleford, an active member of the Central Penn College community. Littleford was student government association president, a resident assistant and a part of many other campus clubs. She graduated in 2018.

For more information about the pantry, contact residencelife@centralpenn.edu.


Comment or story idea? Contact KnightlyEditors@CentralPenn.Edu.

Edited by media-club co-adviser and blog editor Professor Michael Lear-Olimpi.