Blog, Event
About Camille Corbani
Executive Board Position: Nutrition Coordinator
Past Lion’s Pantry Experience: General Member (Spring 2023)
Majors: Nutritional Sciences, Nutrition and Dietetics Option
Minors: Health Policy and Administration
Other 2023-2024 Involvement:
- Health and Human Development Honor Society member since Spring of 2022
- The Presidential Leadership Academy scholar since Spring of 2022
- THON™ Rules and Regulations Fundraising Safety Committee Member for THON 2023 and Spring Captain for THON 2024
A Q&A with Camille
1) What are you most excited about The Lion’s Pantry this year?
- I am excited about helping advance The Lion’s Pantry’s mission and connecting with volunteers that share the same goals.
2) What initiatives, campaigns, or goals would you like to see during the 2023-24 academic year?
- I would like to see more students get involved with the pantry and make it more accessible to all. I would also like to see more students utilize our resources and less stigma around asking for help.
3) Why should new students join The Lion’s Pantry?
- New students should join The Lion’s Pantry because it is a great way to give back to the community you are going to call home for four years. It will also help you make genuine connections with the student body.
4) What does food insecurity mean to you?
- Food insecurity has always been a cause that I have strongly cared about. I believe that everyone should have the right to access safe, clean, and healthy food, especially for college students. It is a major health concern that affects many members of our community whether for a short or long period of time. It is a danger to their well-being, but it also keeps them from reaching their full potential.
5) What excites you most about the position you hold for The Lion’s Pantry during the 2023-24 year?
- I am excited about my position this year because it is new, so it will be fun to see how it can help improve The Lion’s Pantry’s work. I am also excited about bridging the gap between the pantry and Nutrition department, to provide more support and resources on Nutrition related matters.
6) Please share one of your favorite memories from The Lion’s Pantry.
- My favorite memory from The Lion’s Pantry was our first in-person executive board meeting. It was a lot of fun to mingle and get to know everyone I am going to be working with throughout the academic year.
Some Fun Facts About Camille
Favorite Comfort Movie: Gilmore Girls
Favorite Way to Unwind After a Long Day: Listen to music
“Go-To” Fun Fact: I am trilingual.
Blog, Event, Lion's Pantry News, Uncategorized
To The Lion’s Pantry Community:
Created in 2014 to support Penn State students facing food insecurity, The Lion’s Pantry remains a student-run and student-led organization within the university community. A clear need for a student food pantry remains evident according to stories expressed from community members, conversations among similar organizations at large universities, and nation-wide statistics that show hunger is a growing concern for college-aged adults.
The Lion’s Pantry serves every student with a valid Penn State ID. To quantify our impact, The Lion’s Pantry served approximately 2,100 visitors and distributed 34,003 Lb of food and household products in 2021. Our impact has grown since 2020 when our volunteers served 1,673 visitors and distributed 31,355 Lb of supplies, which demonstrates an increasing need for our services within the local community.
The Lion’s Pantry underwent renovations to our main facility off Big Hollow Rd and near Lion Surplus in Summer 2022. To better serve our student community, the Pantry purchased freezer and refrigeration units to slowly offer perishable food items that are highly desired by Penn State students. Moreover, our facility updated the bathroom facilities and created a better storage system that will improve operations across the board.
Thank you for supporting The Lion’s Pantry as we work to serve our student body and mitigate student food insecurity at the University Park campus. Through your generous donations and contributions, we will accomplish our goals of spreading awareness for food insecurity, mitigate the stigma, and continue working toward better serving those who require our resources. It is your continued support that sustains our mission and makes all the difference.
On November 29, The Lion’s Pantry will participate in Giving Tuesday, a global generosity campaign. To donate during to The Lion’s Pantry during the upcoming Giving Tuesday campaign, please find our page here.
If you have any questions about The Lion’s Pantry and our ongoing efforts and needs, please contact us via email at thelionspantry@psu.edu. Thank you for supporting us and our pertinent cause.
Best regard,
The Lion’s Pantry Executive Team
Blog, Event
By: Julia Mertes, Communications Intern, The Lion’s Pantry
Students flock to the The Lion’s Pantry Canstruction® event to view the featured student-made structures created entirely from non-perishable packaged foods — items that will then be donated to The Lion’s Pantry to help students facing food insecurity.
Penn State community members visited the exhibit showcasing structures created by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Schreyer Student Council and The Lion’s Pantry on Monday and Tuesday, April 11-12 in HUB Room 131 on Penn State University Park’s campus.
All Canstruction® structures were created in accordance with the Children’s Story Book event theme.
The Lion’s Pantry created a train structure with their designated food products, while the American Society of Civil Engineers created The Cat in the Hat’s classic hat image and the Schreyer Student Council constructed the Lorax figure from Dr. Seuss’s famous book.
The Canstruction® program showcases The Lion’s Pantry’s impact within the University Park campus community and highlights the importance of critical efforts to eradicate hunger entailed with food insecurity.
The Lion’s Pantry also hosted a reception on Monday evening to highlight their Canstruction® program, which was an event that included free food, door prizes offering gift cards to local establishments and increased community awareness directed toward food insecurity.
At the reception, The Lion Pantry received the Best Use of Labels award for their train creation. The Schreyer Student Council won the Structural Ingenuity Award, the Best Meal Award and the Judge’s Choice Award for their Lorax structure.
Schreyer Student Council member Suzanne Kozloski said her group “really thought about how [they] could connect [their] structure to the mission of The Lion’s Pantry.”
After deliberation, Kozloski (sophomore-biochemistry and molecular biology) said her group thought the Lorax was “a great way to connect the two” goals, especially since the Lorax is associated with sustainability.
“We didn’t really know what to expect,” Kozloski said. “At first we had a really complex structure with the Lorax standing up, but we ended up changing plans.”
Kozloski said the Schreyer Student Council participants modified their original plans upon arrival and “just tried the best [they] could” to achieve their vision.
She said she was proud of their final product and the positive community response their Lorax structure received.
Taylor Dorsett, incoming president for The Lion’s Pantry, said via press release that she’s “looking forward to emphasizing the necessity of collaboration during [her] presidency” since “it’s crucial that we, as a university, come together to better serve our students.”
Dorsett’s vision for increased collaboration between The Lion’s Pantry and other Penn State organizations was promoted throughout the Canstruction® reception by speakers and club members.
Outgoing 2021-2022 Penn State Student Body President at The University Park Undergraduate Association Erin Boas and the incoming President Najee Rodriguez spoke at the Canstruction® reception about the previous and upcoming collaboration of UPUA and The Lion’s Pantry.
Boas and Rodriguez focused their speech on the Student Advisory Board on Student Poverty, a recently-formed group dedicated to tackling poverty gaps at Penn State.
“The purpose and point of creating this partnership between students and also the institution is to really elevate student needs, fill in those gaps that are currently [facing] the institution and make sure that all of the resources are accessible to students and that students really know what’s happening,” Boas (senior-international relations and affairs) said.
Rodriguez then discussed the opportunities created by the Student Advisory Board on Student Poverty in order to bridge the gap and address the issues causing food insecurity and other forms of financial strain.
“Students should want to be able to get the support that they need and the support that they deserve,” Rodriguez (junior-international politics) said. “I mean, the cost of Penn State is increasing each and every year, and it’s becoming unaffordable for a lot of students within the Commonwealth, but also outside, and that should be the number one priority for our university at this point.”
Throughout the two-day event, The Lion’s Pantry aimed to collect non-perishable food items to benefit students within the Penn State community who may need assistance. Additionally, The Lion’s Pantry thanks its sponsors, including the Penn State Educational Office Professionals (PSEOP) Outreach Committee!
Dorsett said she hopes other student organizations come to the Canstruction® event and desire to coordinate a similarly unique program — an event that provides awareness and support for those facing food insecurity but is also different from the typical food drives.
She said she’s excited to collaborate with other student groups at Penn State in order to create engaging events that raise awareness about food insecurity in creative and social ways.
“I’m excited to see who comes to Canstruction® because I feel like we have a lot of campus support, but sometimes they don’t really know where to find us, especially since the main facility is kind of out of the way,” Dorsett (junior-biobehavioral health) said when interviewed at the event. “I’m hoping that having an event very central to campus in the HUB will help with visibility for next year to possibly bring in more volunteers and collaborations.”
Canstruction® volunteer Elon Bowie said she’s enjoyed volunteering at the event and seeing the creative structures her peers made out of everyday food products.
“It’s a great way for people in The Lion’s Pantry to get the word out about [their work] because a lot of people at Penn State don’t necessarily know where The Lion’s Pantry is and how there’s a lot of food options when you go to the pantry,” Bowie (junior-human development family studies) said. “I’m most excited to have a lot of people come to the event to learn about these opportunities.”
Bowie said she hopes the event prompts more students to volunteer with the Lion’s Pantry and make donations to help those in need of assistance.
“The Canstruction® event just shows people’s creative and artistic talents while still getting the word out about The Lion’s Pantry — about what we do — and just making sure that people [experiencing] food insecurities have food to eat because college is expensive, and it can be [tough] trying to find good meals to eat [around] campus,” Bowie said.
Bowie said she enjoyed watching the different student organizations work together, often following carefully drawn out diagrams, to complete their desired structures.
“I just thought it was very interesting how dedicated a lot of these members were to creating structures out of cans,” Bowie said. “It’s pretty cool and artistic because that’s not necessarily something someone does every day.”
Alexis Keisewetter said she decided to volunteer at the Canstruction® event through her sorority, which partnered with The Lion’s Pantry for this event to help serve throughout the day and monitor activities.
“It’s really cool that they’re doing this, especially in the HUB where a lot of people walk around all day and can see it,” Keisewetter (junior-secondary English education) said. “So, hopefully some people will stop in, take a look and maybe donate or follow The Lion’s Pantry in the future.”
Keisewetter said she’s “never seen something like [the Canstruction® event] before” and found the structures to be “really cool,” especially the one depicting the Lorax — the structure she described as her personal favorite.
“I really like giving back to the community, and I try as much as I can on Penn State’s campus to be able to do little things like just sitting here, showing off some cans and giving back,” Keisewetter said.
She said she enjoyed volunteering with The Lion’s Pantry and hopes the Canstruction® event increases awareness within the student body about the work being done around them to combat food insecurity.
To learn more about how to get involved with The Lion’s Pantry by following us on social media, joining The Lion’s Pantry Ambassadors or contacting us with your inquiries.
Event, Lion's Pantry News
Explore the intersection of student food security and art at The Lion’s Pantry’s upcoming Canstruction® event! The exhibit will feature student-made structures built entirely from packaged food, which will then be donated to The Lion’s Pantry to help stock the shelves of the student food pantry. This year’s theme is Children’s Story Books.
The program will highlight the impact of The Lion’s Pantry at the University Park campus, while bringing important awareness to the topic of food insecurity and how the Penn State community can join together to support the critical efforts to eradicate hunger.
Structures created by students in the following organizations will be on display between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Monday, April 11 and Tuesday, April 12 in 131 HUB:
- American Society of Civil Engineers
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
- Schreyer Student Council
- The Lion’s Pantry
A special Canstruction® program featuring a reception with free food and door prizes including gift cards to local restaurants, Penn State gear, and more will be held on Monday, April 11 at 6 p.m. in the Flex Theater in the HUB.
Students, staff, and community members are encouraged to visit the event and vote for their favorite structure. The most popular structure will win this year’s People’s Choice Award!
The Lion’s Pantry looks forward to sharing this event with the Penn State community. Taylor Dorsett, incoming Lion’s Pantry president, said “I’m looking forward to emphasizing the necessity of collaboration during my presidency. It’s crucial that we as a university come together to better serve our students. In doing this, we shed light on a very prevalent issue of food insecurity at Penn State, and work towards reducing stigma simultaneously.”
Since 2014, The Lion’s Pantry has met a critical need amongst Penn State students, while bringing awareness to the topic of student hunger. Co-founder Jake Ruddy explained, “My hope is that the Pantry will allow students to focus on their education, not where their next meal will come from.”
The Lion’s Pantry will also be accepting non-perishable food items during the reception and open event hours in 131 HUB. A list of the most needed items and more information about the Pantry can be found here, and supporters from afar can visit The Lion’s Pantry’s Amazon Wish List.
Please come visit this creative collaboration and engage in addressing and mitigating student food insecurity at The Lion’s Pantry’s 2022 Canstruction® event!
