Outside of Hughes Trigg, SMU’s Student Leadership Group of Cox’s MSBA program volunteered to help replenish The Shop at SMU on March 24. Student leaders like Bree Slay and Ace Chanda unloaded boxes of food donations from a car then took them inside Hughes-Trigg Student Center.
The Shop is one of SMU’s hidden gems that not many students know about, but it provides food resources for SMU students who need it.
“Not many people know about it because it’s for people who need it,” Slay, an MSBA student leader, said. “They [The Shop] are trying to bring more awareness to it so that people can donate more food.”
The Shop is a food pantry on campus that provides non-perishable food items and basic essentials at no cost to current SMU students who experience food insecurity. Whatever the food insecurity may be, The Shop helps students in any situation, no questions asked.
Assistant Director of Parent Family Programs at SMU, Conner Terry, works closely with The Shop, advocating for students with food insecurity. He defines the many ways food insecurity can look for students.
“When we say food insecurity it’s, ‘I don’t know where my meals this week are coming from’ or ‘I’m making an executive decision that I’m gonna pay my rent this month instead of buying groceries this week,’ or ‘I don’t know where the money is going to come from,’” Terry said. “That’s when we say insecurity.”
At SMU, people don’t often discuss food insecurity or believe that students may have to deal with it, but that’s not true.
“We have students on campus who are making those executive decisions, who are putting their nutrition and their nutritional value in the backseat position. And that’s where The Shop steps in,” Terry said. “We are trying to provide an opportunity where students don’t have to make that call.”
Within The Shop, which is located on the second floor of Hughes-Trigg Student Center next to the prayer rooms, shelves are stocked with rice, canned goods and boxes of Kraft mac and cheese.
The Shop has everything students need to make full meals. Volunteers like Slay and Chanda continue to make The Shop a plentiful resource for students.
Slay’s involvement with The Shop goes beyond her volunteer work as an MSBA student leader. Her mother, Jeanne Slay, is one of the co-presidents of SMU’s Moms and Dads Club. Jeanne volunteers and donates food to The Shop whenever she can.
“She loves volunteering. She got involved [with The Shop] through the Moms and Dads Club,” Slay said. “She’s always finding a way to help students in need and be a kind of mother figure for a bunch of students.”
Whenever The Shop gets food donations, the MSBA Student Leadership Group volunteers to help unload the donated food and bring it to the Office of the Dean of Students, where it will later be placed in The Shop.
Ace Chanda found out about The Shop through Jeanne Slay and now volunteers as an MSBA Student Leader. Providing to those who need it most is not new for Chanda as he’s been donating and volunteering with similar organizations before he came to SMU.
“I come to give food,” Chanda said. “It’s something my family did back in India a lot, so I wanted to keep that tradition going.”
Getting to share his love of food with others in the SMU community is important to Chanda. Even if it’s not a lot, Chanda gives what resources he can so others can experience the same love he has for food for themselves.
“It feels nice because I love food,” Chanda said. “I cook a lot for anyone who wants food. So to me, someone else gets to enjoy it and I can do what I can with the resources I have.”
