Build a garden

Food insecurity on campus

We all hear about college students eating ramen noodles and living off of the little money that’s left over from their hefty tuition. But that stereotype is no joke. It’s happening here on our own campus. Many students are hungry, some even homeless.

Many students have to choose between either tuition, rent, and books or food. To make matters worse, the dining halls in the University of Illinois are incredibly expensive. For kids who stay in dorms, this is the meal plan they have for the Academic year:

6 Classic Plan*	$2,160
12 Classic/15 Café Credits Plan	$4,560
10 Classic/45 Café Credits Plan	$5,240
All Café Credits (130) Plan	$5,604
Maximum Classic Plan	$5,604

The numbers represent how many meals a student can have per week. As you can see, it’s quite expensive to eat in the dining halls. So those kids who can’t afford the dining halls should just go to the grocery store, right?

But in the U of I, the only real grocery store on campus is an overpriced County Market located near the edge of campus. If kids can’t eat in the dining halls and they can’t afford to go to cafes, they have to buy groceries. But if they also can’t afford to go to Country Market and don’t have the time/money to go to Walmart for groceries, what are they supposed to do?

I don’t think adding a garden next to Uni would fix hunger amongst college students. Having a garden by Uni might not even be able to feed a group of twenty people, but I think that it’s worth a shot. This doesn’t have to be a Michelle Obama type garden. Due to practicality, it probably won’t even be that big.

However, I think we should consider starting a garden. Many low SES college students aren’t getting enough food, and when they do eat food, it’s not food that can sustain an intense college curriculum. As we saw in the documentary, Rosie had a lot of trouble focusing in school. To thrive in college, students should have fairly healthy foods to feed their brain. They should also not have the stress of worrying where their next meal is coming from on top of their already stressful schoolwork.

Again, I don’t think making a garden would fix that problem. But if a garden could just help feed one person, I think it’s worth it. Perhaps a garden could even set a precedent for other gardens to pop up in CU.

I think to get to the core of this issue, we need some serious reform. But looking at who our president is, I don’t think that people who need help from the government will be getting that help anytime soon. So though planting a garden won’t get to the crux of hunger in America, it would at least do a little for something who are affected by this overarching problem.