CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — September is Hunger Action Month, and now Texas A&M- Corpus Christi will be doing its part to help feed students fresh foods year round.
Going off to college can be costly, but TAMU-CC is doing its part to cut cost where it can.
Izzy's Food Pantry already provides canned goods and non-perishable food items to students who are food insecure. Now they're kicking it up a notch offering "fresh food Friday’s" once a month.
“We've partnered with the Coastal Bend Food Bank here in town to provide fresh produce, breads and pastries,” said Lisa Perez, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's assistant vice president of student life.
A generous donation of 4,000 pounds of fresh foods allowed Izzy’s Food Pantry to feed more than 300 students this past Friday.
“We offered squash, bell peppers, we had carrots, we had grapes, apples, oranges and then a variety of pastries for them to take,” said Perez.
Lisa Perez says some students were hesitant to pick out vegetables, mostly because she says a lot of them didn't know how to cook them.
“But again, the partnership with the Food Bank they have great resources so they brought their nutritionist with them and so they had recipes for our students and were giving them ideas on how to cook and use the vegetables,” said Perez.
Perez says Izzy’s Food Pantry serves about 110 students each week, and the demand is only growing.
“This past week we had 143 students walk through our doors, I’m constantly ordering from the Food Bank because we partner with the Food Bank,” said Perez. “So if there's anyone out there who thinks that there's an opportunity for them to give or think about Izzy’s' Food Pantry, we would love to take donations to provide and help fight food insecurity.”
For more information on how you can donate to or utilize the services of Izzy’s Food Pantry, contact 361-825-3663 or email them at foodpantry@tamucc.edu