LSU food pantry serves 5,000 students during fall semester

Half an hour before the LSU Food Pantry opened, student volunteers unpacked boxes of canned goods, snacks and produce, arranging them on shelves according to the food category.

Students began to line up on the first floor of the Student Union as they waited for the pantry doors to open. The pantry has already served 5,000 individual students this semester, according to Campus Life operations and food pantry manager Jennifer Cristina.

Before she started managing the supplemental grocery store, she wouldn't have known the extent to which it was actually needed on campus, Cristina said. But more students experience food insecurity than people might expect, she said. In 2020, around 23% of college students reported struggling with food insecurity, according to the U.S. Government Accountab