Oregon State University’s Basic Needs Center food pantry has seen a steady increase of people fed each month for the last several years. 

They saw a record-breaking 2,077 shopping trips to the pantry in October last year.

Data from the food pantry’s monthly reports to Linn Benton Food Share (their partner agency) show this increase starting with October 2017 having 199 shopping trips, followed by 257 in October 2018 and 432 in October 2019.

In October 2021 there were 852 shopping trips to the food pantry, and the next year they exceeded 1,000 trips with 1,410.

The food pantry was started in 2009 by OSU alumni Dr. Sarah E. Cunningham and Dana M. Johnson as a graduate project. Any person who meets income requirements can shop at the pantry every Wednesday starting at 8 a.m.

“We find that the vast majority of students fall into the income guidelines,” said Emily Faltesek, a registered dietitian nutritionist and the food security program’s manager.

According to Faltesek, the current income requirement is that you make less than $3,765 a month. Also, no proof of income, home address, or citizenship is required when signing in to the pantry. 

All of the food for the pantry comes from cash and food donations. They get food from Franz Bakery and Spring Valley Dairy. Orders are also placed from Winco and Linn Benton Food Share every week.

“Our goal is to be a predictable supply of useful items to supplement grocery shopping for people,” Faltesek said.

She said weekly regular items include canned beans, spaghetti, canned salmon, rice, canned tuna, ramen, macaroni and cheese, as well as a weekly fresh produce bag that usually features bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, and other items based on what is seasonally available.

“We try to keep our regular staples in stock,” Faltesek said.

Faltesek has been working at the Basic Needs Center since August 2019. She provides support to peer navigators who work in the food pantry program, as well as SNAP Outreach and food strategy topics.

The food pantry is far from the only service provided by the Basic Needs Center. Another major resource the BNC provides is peer-to-peer strategy conversations.

“A student can come here and talk to a peer navigator broadly about food strategy to come up with ideas about all parts of putting together your plan of how to feed yourself,” Faltesek said.

“It’s tricky to do that, especially if it’s the first time when you’re out of your parents’ home planning how to do things on your own.”

When asked about how the possibility of changes to the government food benefits program SNAP or other possible benefit freezes Faltesek said, “People make their food plan for themselves using lots of different resources, and I think if any parts of your food strategy go away or change, then you might have to make a different plan.”

“If some parts change and people are reevaluating their plans, then I think we could see an increase (in people using the food pantry),” Faltesek said. “And I think that is pretty predictable — people are smart, people are capable and come up with good plans to make things work for themselves.”