Georgia Tech addresses food insecurity among students

Recent studies show that college students are increasingly struggling with food insecurity. Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), in Atlanta, decided to tackle the issue head-on this year by establishing a two-armed program to help residents in need. The initiative started after incorporating Campus Kitchen last April, a national Sodexo-supported program that facilitates distribution of leftover food from campus dining facilities to residents in need off campus.

The first part of the program is Klemis Kitchen. “Klemis Kitchen has the same mission [as Campus Kitchen], which is feeding those that are food-insecure or hungry, but Klemis Kitchen is aimed at actual students on the Georgia Tech campus,” explains Grant Grimes, sustainability coordinator with Sodexo. In one way or another, these students can’t afford to have a meal plan or dine regularly with us, he continues. “They’re trying to study and trying to advance themselves and their education, but they’re not having reliable access to food.” 

For students with a chronic need, Klemis Kitchen will operate similar to Campus Kitchen, in that leftover food from dining services will be collected at the central production location and packaged into single meals. But then the food will be made available to eligible students from a locked freezer on campus reserved for the program. Students in the program can open the freezer with a swipe of their campus ID cards.

“So if they need a week’s worth of dinners, they grab a week’s worth of dinners; if they need two weeks’ or whatever it is they need, or if they just need lunch or dinner one day, they can just go in and grab it for themselves. It’s a completely self-service thing,” Grimes says. 

Students will be assigned a number, but only the dean of students will have access to any identifying information. “The dean’s office already handles these kinds of issues, so they’re already aware of these students that have these issues,” Grimes says. “That way, if we keep [the information] with their office, we don’t have to worry about [the students] thinking that dining is trying to get their information or whatever it may be.”

But students who may have an immediate need—when all their money is tied up in a car repair or they are awaiting loan approval, for example—can get help from the Klemis Kash arm of the program. After meeting with the dean, those students can get dining services gift cards to help fill the gap. “It’s usable at any Georgia Tech dining location, whether it’s a resident dining location or one of our retail locations,” Grimes says. “And then if they have a sustained need, that’s when we’ll move them over to the Kitchens program.”

The program will formally launch in November after new freezer equipment and electronic access technology is in place. At the start, marketing will remain word-of-mouth from the dean’s office so that students feel more comfortable speaking up about their needs. “But initially it’s going to be run through the office of the dean of students, where if a student comes to them and says, ‘I’m having these issues,’ the dean and his staff can [say], ‘We have these two fantastic programs in place just for you and it’s completely anonymous,’” Grimes explains.

The Klemis Kitchen program is named for Tommy Klemis, the longstanding proprietor of a campus restaurant, Junior’s Grill, who “was also known to not charge students if they came in and said that they were hungry and couldn’t afford to eat, and on a few occasions even gave them cash to take care of their expenses,” Grimes adds.