Alexander Fung

GFI Fellow - Class of 2015

Undergraduate Student, Business Administration
UC Irvine

Project

Food Pantry Initiative

Description

Our efforts focus on eradicating food insecurity at UC Irvine by establishing food pantries and programming events that raise awareness about food insecurity. Our efforts are partnered with the UC Irvine Student Outreach & Retention Center and the Associated Students of the University of California, Irvine (ASUCI). Other than establishing food pantries, we also are aiming to educate students to eat healthy in affordable ways.

View poster (PDF)

Goals

One of two main focuses since receiving the GFI grant is to raise awareness for food hunger and insecurity at UC Irvine. It is unfortunate to realize that many students, campus administrators and faculty members do not acknowledge that hunger is an existing problem. To address this problem, we have created and presented multiple food insecurity presentations for different campus groups for the past few months. We also partnered with the Health Education Center, ASUCI, Global Sustainability Resource Center, Arroyo Vista Housing Community and Waste Not OC Coalition to host the “Student Food Access and Insecurity Awareness Week” during April. The awareness week included public boothing, workshops, a food pantry demonstration at the UC Irvine Student Outreach & Retention (SOAR) Center, and service events for the entire week. The other main focus is to establish a food pantry to end food insecurity by distributing food items to students. Our team had a lot of challenges with UC Irvine Risk Management due a third-party indemnification clause between our original food suppliers and UC Irvine Risk Management. After the fellows presented the petition to UC Irvine Student Affairs, Vice Chancellor Thomas Parham agreed to move on with the food pantry initiative and accepted the liability risk. The fellows are currently assisting the efforts to establish and operate the SOAR Food Pantry.

Future Plans

After this academic year, one of the fellows, Alexander Fung, will continue to pursue this project under his executive office in student government (ASUCI). As the administrative affairs vice president, Fung will allocate resources and interns to focus on establishing and operating food pantries at UC Irvine. The first food pantry, which is partnered with the UC Irvine Student Outreach and Retention (SOAR) Center, is expected to open in August 2015 under the supervision of Fung and SOAR Center Director Graciela Fernandez.

Mentor

Graciela Fernandez