Saying goodbye to Spring ’22

Well, the semester is finally over and we are feeling quite sentimental! Last week, we said goodbye to our amazing Pantry Coordinator, Collin, who recently finished his MPA and is off to work for the Dept. of Health & Human Services! We are super sad to see him go, but we know he will do amazing things. Good-bye Collin! You will be missed dearly. ❤

Collin poses with some yellow roses on his last day at work. How bittersweet!

On that note, we are SO excited to welcome Chance LeBlanc as our NEW Pantry Coordinator! Chance is a non-traditional freshman at UM studying creative writing. They like collecting rocks and are allergic to green peppers… and they are totally awesome! Come say hi to Chance when you get a chance.

Introducing our new Pantry Coordinator, Chance!

Next, we have several groups to thank for their hard work organizing food drives this spring! First up is UM’s School of Music & American String Teachers Association (ASTA), who raised 476.6 pounds of donations for the UM Pantry- WHOOHOO!

Donations from ASTA

Then there was the Women’s Leadership Initiative, who brought in another 206 pounds on Kindness Day (May 4th)- WHAT A KIND GESTURE!

The Women’s Leadership Initiative poses w/ Monte

And last but certainly not least, our wonderful Fraternities & Sororities canvassed the U-district to raise a whopping 758 pounds during the last two weeks of the semester- TOTALLY AWESOME!

Here lies Collin, surrounded by donations raised by UM’s Fraternity & Sorority Involvement!

THANK YOU to all who have worked so hard to raise donations for us throughout the year- your support directly impacts UM students & their families, and we greatly appreciate it.

Spring ’22 was definitely a record-breaking semester here at the UM Pantry: from January 12th- May 14th, the UM Pantry distributed a total of 9,233 pounds of food & personal care products to 202 households through 900 in-person visits. While March was our biggest month EVER in terms of distribution (2,353 pounds), April witnessed the greatest number of visits to the Pantry (256). Please help us meet the ever-growing demand on our campus by continuing to spread the word and supporting the Pantry through in-kind & monetary donations.

In case you were wondering, the Pantry WILL be open this summer! Starting next week, we will be open Mondays, Wednesdays & Saturdays from 11am-3pm. We will also continue to stock our Grab-n-Go shelf & satellite locations for folks who are unable to make it in during these hours.

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Congratulations to the Class of ’22, and happy end-of-semester to everyone else! Looking forward to an awesome summer. Stay cool, Griz!