After 10 years of serving the Huntsville community and SHSU students, the university’s food pantry is shifting away from its distribution services and to a virtual curbside pickup model.

“Food pantries have kind of a backward business model,” said Kathleen Gilbert, director of the SHSU Food Pantry. “Our goal is to shut our door.”

The goal of the SHSU Food Pantry is to put an end to food insecurity, which is the condition of having insufficient access to food and affects one in three college students. It is open to all active SHSU students, regardless of income. The food pantry is purely donation and grant-based and does not receive any funding from the university. Students donate to the food pantry by providing their time, money or products.

Until now, the food pantry has operated by opening up distribution days every other Wednesday. Students would line up at the door to shop through the supply on a first-come, first-serve basis. As of spring 2025, they are finishing the final steps to get a curbside pickup system up and running. This will be officially rolled out in fall 2025.

“I think it’s really going to alleviate the stigma of visiting a food pantry because there’s no more standing in line,” Gilbert said. “It’s just like online shopping, like you would at HEB or Kroger. You would shop online, schedule your date and time to be able to pick it up, and grab it and go.”

Moving to an online shopping model will make the food pantry even more accessible to students, especially those who may not be available during the current distribution time.

Other services provided by the food pantry include Swipe Out Hunger and Cooking Demonstrations. Swipe Out Hunger is a meal plan substitute for commuter students who do not have a meal plan. Cooking Demonstrations is a partnership with the Department of Human Sciences’ MS Dietetics & Combined Dietetics programs that provide students with recipes and tutorials that could be created in dorms or apartments using products from the food pantry.

After years of service to Bearkats and members of the community, the SHSU food pantry is continuously evolving and finding new ways to decrease hunger and fight food insecurity.