Blog, Lion's Pantry News
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.– The Lion’s Pantry announced adjusted summer hours beginning Monday, May 16, 2022.
The Pantry is closed during finals week and the first week of summer, from Thursday, April 28 through Sunday, May 15.
Summer hours will be 5:00-7:30 P.M. on Tuesdays and Thursdays from May 17 through August 18. The option to request a pre-packed grocery bag pickup will also be available throughout the summer. Hours may change based on campus closures or other extenuating circumstances, so please follow The Lion’s Pantry on social media for updates.
Created in 2014 to address food insecurity within the Penn State community, The Lion’s Pantry is both student-created and student-led.
As the official on-campus student food pantry at Penn State’s University Park campus, The Lion’s Pantry serves every student with a valid Penn State ID with free food and supplies — no questions asked.
For students without a mode of transportation, the campus shuttle runs weekdays until 6 p.m. and drops students off on Big Hollow Rd.
Due to renovations to The Lion’s Pantry facility, summer open hours and pre-bagged distribution will be held in nearby location Chem Storage on Big Hollow Rd in storage unit #003. The Pantry’s location is the first Chem Storage building on the left.
In addition, Cub Pantries are located across Penn State’s campus to ensure food is readily accessible to students.
Students can access Cub Pantries at the following locations during the summer months:
- Student Disability Resources, 102 Boucke
- Center for Gender and Sexual Diversity, Lower Level, 0011 HUB
- Student Veteran Center, 146 Ritenour
- Student Care and Advocacy, 120 Boucke
- Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, Lobby
- EMS (Earth and Mineral Sciences) Library, 105 Deike
- Office for Off Campus Student Support, 204 E. Calder Way, Suite 200
- Gender Equity Center, 204 Boucke
- Physical and Mathematical Sciences Library, 201 Davey Laboratory
Open hours at each Cub Pantry location are the hours of each respective office.
Please contact thelionspantry@psu.edu with questions.
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!
Blog, Event, Lion's Pantry News
Our event will highlight the creative structures of Penn State Global Brigades, The Lion’s Pantry Club, The Student Farm Club, and Project Cahir. The structures will be judged by Penn State faculty and administration and the best structure will win a prize! Students, staff, and community members can participate in the People’s Choice portion of judging by bringing a canned item and placing it in a box in front of their favorite structure.
We invite the media to join us on March 27th from 4-6:30pm and we will be sharing information on other special event hours soon! The event will also provide information about each of the clubs involved as well as information on food insecurity and ways to get involved with this important discussion. Check out https://www.canstruction.org/ for a taste of what is coming to our campus!
We Are…Grateful for the opportunity to bring an exciting Canstruction® event to our campus and can’t wait to see you there!
Blog, Lion's Pantry News
Post Written By: Ann White
Consider the following scenario. You’re sitting in a lecture hall full of fellow college students eagerly waiting for class to begin. Just as the professor begins to teach, your stomach loudly growls. Many would suggest a simple solution of a quick snack to silence it. However, because you are a food insecure college student, that is a luxury you can’t afford. In fact, you are now stuck figuring out where your next meal will come from. You have to worry about sending in the rent check and electricity bill for the month, on top of paying tuition for the semester. Additionally, you have to work after this class to cover these financial obligations, so there’s no time to eat anyways. You contemplate the possibility that today might be a one-meal day. All of a sudden, the class starts to rise and pack their belongings as you’re snapped back to reality and notice that class has finished. Clearly unable to focus for another class period, you now have to plan to teach yourself the material in your limited free time.
The above situation is a day-to-day struggle for many college students who experience food insecurity, including those at Penn State. One day I had the opportunity to speak with a gracious Pantry client. She shared, “I just heard about The Lion’s Pantry thirty minutes ago and made the trek up here because I needed food for this week.” I replied saying that I was grateful that she discovered our services, but wish she could have known sooner. She responded stating, “I think I would have been more aware of them if there was less of a stigma around food insecurity.” I agreed and then asked her to elaborate on that statement. She hesitantly and emotionally continued, “I work, take many classes, and am in clubs, but people think that I am just being lazy when I can’t afford food when in fact I am trying my hardest.”
Through several other conversations I found that this client is far from the only student experiencing this stigma. I wanted to address the stigma about being food insecure by providing outsiders and myself with opportunities to gain greater perspectives on the significance of food insecurity during college. It is essential that individuals understand the magnitude of the issue of food insecurity and its further influence on other aspects of student’s lives. From my conversations, many students feel stigma because there are many individuals who are not aware that their fellow students can’t afford food. This indicates to me a need for educational initiatives that help others understand food insecurity and its implications. It needs to be not only the mission of The Lion’s Pantry, but also the responsibility of the Penn State community to address food insecurity and the associated stigma as a student issue. If food insecurity is a student issue, it is Penn State University’s issue.
Blog, Lion's Pantry News
Thank you for stopping by! Here we will be posting words from our executive team, pantry clients, and updates about the organization.
As our first post I’d like you to get to know me a little more. My name is Tiana Williams, and I am currently serving as the Lion’s Pantry President. I’m from Philadelphia, PA. I grew up in West Philadelphia for the first 10 years of my life and have moved around all across the city since then. My favorite food is sushi and my zodiac sign is Cancer.
My interest in working with Lion’s Pantry stems from my own struggle dealing with food security, not only in my childhood but also while here at Penn State. I know what it’s like to go to bed hungry, to be excited to go to school because I knew I would eat, and to stretch meals that shouldn’t be stretched just so that I could eat everyday. That silent struggle to be a normal, functioning student and still pursue my dreams is not easy.
I’ve made a point to pursue opportunities that allow me to reach out and help those that may otherwise be overlooked. Whether that be through farming and providing fresh produce to people, learning about food systems and community development in my classes, or working with the Lion’s Pantry, my passion is to bring food to people–with fairness and compassion at the forefront of my service.
Not only is the Lion’s Pantry providing a necessary resource to students at the University Park campus, it is building a community of support for students who are stigmatized and undetectable. By existing as a resource we are reaching out to students and saying “You are welcome here. We care about your struggles and will support you through them.”
One the greatest things about being at a large campus like University Park is the wealth of resources and opportunities to make sure students feel safe and accepted. I am happy to be a part of an organization that breaks down the stigma of food insecurity as a community that aims to serve.
