Swipe Out Hunger Equips Campus Pantries to End Food Insecurity

Swipe Out Hunger works to solve student hunger by providing its partner campuses with the support, training, and resources they need to run impactful food security programs – like student food pantries.

750 +

campus network

653,000

students served

6.9 M

meals provided

Recognizing Student Hunger

For most students, college is an opportunity to build a foundation for career success and financial security. But when students’ basic needs aren’t met, it affects their ability to focus on their studies, connect with their campus community, and complete their degrees. 

Today, 1 in 3 students in the U.S. faces food insecurity, which means they have limited access to the nutrition they need to live healthy lives, making them less likely to graduate. Swipe Out Hunger is a national nonprofit working to end college student food insecurity by providing partners with the support, training, and resources to run on-campus food pantries.

Addressing Food Insecurity for College Persistence 

Federal, state, and scholarship funding helps millions of students cover the cost of tuition, enabling them to access higher education. However, there is little financial support available to cover the cost of necessities like food and shelter, which can make it harder for students to keep their studies on track. According to a study from Johns Hopkins, students facing food insecurity are 43% less likely to graduate within six years than their food-secure peers.

To address this challenge, Swipe Out Hunger first launched Swipe Drive, a program that allows students to donate extra meals to peers facing hunger. Since then, the nonprofit scaled its efforts to include advocacy and policy work, community building, and on-campus solutions — including food pantry support.

Boosting the Power of Campus Food Pantries

While the number of on-campus food pantries has exploded in recent years, many are understaffed and underfunded, limiting the number of students they can serve. To help pantries increase their impact, Swipe Out Hunger delivers best-in-class training on improving operations. The team offers guidance on fundraising, marketing, student communications, and best practices for refrigeration and food storage. Additionally, the organization provides campus partners with up to $7,000 in Swipe Grants to help pantries hire staff and purchase infrastructure, such as software and technology, or cold storage for perishable food.

To help ensure campus pantries sustain, thrive, and meet more students’ needs, Swipe Out Hunger holds ongoing training and collaboration sessions so that members of the network learn and grow together. The organization is also focused on expanding national partnerships that will enable pantries to source items like refrigerators or feminine hygiene products at a reduced cost. 

Working Toward a Hunger-Free Future

After several years of growth, Swipe Out Hunger is focused on a future without student hunger. The team believes that access to food is not just a basic need but a human right, and ending food insecurity is critical to students’ lifelong success.

In 2021, Swipe Out Hunger acquired the College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA), a campus professional organization that shares its mission to end student food insecurity. In addition to bringing multiple leading anti-hunger experts together in one place, acquiring CUFBA also made Swipe Out Hunger the largest network of food pantries on college campuses, empowering the nonprofit to reach even more students. In the years ahead, Swipe is dedicated to further growing its campus network, helping launch and sustain more pantries, and expanding its national efforts to ensure all students have access to the food they need to excel in school, graduate, and succeed.