By: Anne Reynolds, Director of Advancement Communication, Office of University Advancement and Alumni Relations
In spring 2023, the George Mason University community came together on Mason Vision Day (MVD), a day of focused philanthropy, to mitigate food insecurity on its campuses. Recognizing that food security is an important component of student success, funds raised on MVD helped to secure meal vouchers for on-campus dining, provide gift cards for local grocery stores, and to supply the university’s Patriot Pantry, which is operated by the Student Support and Advocacy Center within University Life.
This year, University Life welcomed a new partner in these efforts: the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB). CAFB is a hunger relief organization that works with community partners throughout the Washington metropolita region to provide access to food and opportunity to people struggling with hunger and food insecurity. As part of Mason’s MVD efforts, the food bank matched $30,000 of the funds raised in the form of credits in its online ordering portal, thus offering access to a greater variety of foods.
CAFB is now extending its partnership with Mason through the introduction of home delivery of healthy groceries free of charge to students experiencing food insecurity and their households.
“We started from a place of understanding that students have a lot of demands being put on their time and on their resources and began with the simple premise that addressing food needs would increase their success rates,” said Sabrina Tadele, Director of Strategic Initiatives at CAFB. CAFB has offered a similar service on certain community college campuses; the program is currently running at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland.
At Mason, CAFB will deliver to the university pre-boxed shelf-stable groceries and fresh produce on a biweekly basis for up to 60 students. These boxes will be delivered to students’ homes within a 15-mile radius of the campus. To accomplish the deliveries, CAFB has teamed with DoorDash, a technology company that delivers food, groceries, and household products from stores and restaurants in more than 25 countries around the world. DoorDash “has been very, very generous with nonprofits, including the whole national network of food banks,” said Tadele.
Mason staff will administer the operations of the program on campus, filling orders, and arranging for delivery to students. Equally important, Mason provides information to measure the impact of the program on students’ health and related academic outcomes.
“Evaluation is foundational for us,” said Tadele. CAFB conducts surveys with students at the beginning and end of each semester to measure the degree of a student’s food insecurity, as well as students’ subjective measures of well-being: physical health, mental health, and ability to focus in class. Mason will provide academic data with anonymized identifiers, including information on students’ enrollment intensity, time to graduation, and attrition and retention. “We spent a lot of time with our evaluation specialist designing the surveys the students will receive,” said Tadele. “We have to be able to understand whether it works or not.”
At the heart of the program is Mason’s and CAFB’s shared objective to help students take part in an economically thriving community on a larger scale. “One of our broader goals with these partnerships is that we want to give students the support they need to finish their programs and then earn living-wage jobs and be able to contribute to our local economy. It’s a cyclical effect,” said Grace Brown, CAFB Strategic Initiatives Manager.
She added, “I’ve been struck, in our conversations with members of Mason’s staff, how aligned our organizations are when it comes to food security for students. Making really holistic choices, because students are people, and they have a lot of different things going on, and making sure all their needs are met. “