Stocked & Reddie Opens Its Doors to Serve UAMS
| Fresh fruit and vegetables, frozen Cafeteria meals, peanut butter and cereal — Stocked & Reddie, the UAMS food pantry, opened its doors July 15 offering all of these and more to students and employees who struggle with food insecurity.
Holly Naramore (left) and Tonya Johnson (second from right) help Stocked & Reddie members choose salads and frozen meals for their bags. Photo credit, Bryan Clifton
More than 500 meals were distributed opening day to 55 employees and students, said Tonya Johnson, director of Nutrition Services. More than 100 members of Team UAMS have registered for the food pantry since July 1.
“I was very pleased with the turnout for our first day,” she said. “Everyone was so excited that UAMS was able to do this for employees and students. Many participants also wanted to volunteer as a sense of giving back, which just shows this is really a team effort and a team building initiative.”
For Calvin Tunstall, a dishwasher in Nutrition Services, food insecurity is a very real concern. Too often, he just doesn’t have enough money in his paycheck to cover every meal. He is excited about having a food pantry on campus where he can select the meals that best suit him.
Mande Corbett and Michael Duncan are all smiles as Duncan displays the meals he picked out at the pantry. Duncan, who works in Campus Environmental Services, was the first person to use Stocked & Reddie. Photo credit, Yavonda Chase
“It makes me feel good that UAMS has opened this food pantry to take care of employees and students,” he said.
Located in the Distribution Center (800 Cottage Drive), Stocked & Reddie is open on Mondays and Thursdays from noon to 6 p.m. The food pantry is available for any employee or student who feels they are food insecure. Registration can be completed online.
“One of the most important parts about how Stocked & Reddie is set up is our employees and students receive ingredients for meals to feed their entire household,” said Mande Corbett, the Stocked & Reddie coordinator. “We want to ensure the whole family has access to healthy meals.”
Faith Johnson, daughter of Tonya Johnson, builds bags of food for the food pantry. Photo credit, Tonya Johnson
In addition, Johnson will be offering grocery-store shopping classes to help participants learn how to stretch their dollars and still purchase healthy food.
“Many of our employees and students who are food insecure also find themselves living in food deserts,” she said. “In this class, I’ll take the participants to various stores, including a grocery store and a Dollar General, and teach them how to buy healthy foods on a tight budget.”
The idea for a food pantry was born after a student survey was conducted in 2018. The survey found that more than 20% of students reported that they (or another member of their household) took smaller portions or skipped meals altogether because there wasn’t enough money for food. The survey also found that more than 40% of students said balanced meals are unaffordable for them.
Mande Corbett organizes fresh produce on Stocked Reddies shelves Monday. Photo credit, Yavonda Chase
“The results were troubling, to say the least,” said Stephanie Gardner, Pharm.D., Ed.D., senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost. “There was an immediate consensus by the chancellor and others in senior leadership that we needed to address the problem of food insecurity among our students and our employees.”
A committee was formed to oversee the creation of a food pantry. In addition to Gardner and Johnson, committee members include Christina Clark, vice chancellor of Institutional Support Services and chief operating officer; Holly Naramore, director of the Chancellor’s Project Coordination Office; Robin Reed, M.D., director of the Office of Population Health in the College of Medicine (COM); Jennifer Huie, volunteer services and auxiliary manager; Reza Hakkak, Ph.D., professor in dietetics/nutrition and pediatrics and associate dean for research in the College of Health Professions (CHP); Phyllis Fields, CHP associate dean for student affairs and director of admissions; Leanne Whiteside-Mansell, Ed.D., director of the Research and Evaluation Division in the COM’s Department of Family and Preventative Medicine; and Cheri Goforth, director of Campus Life and Student Support Services.
Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, and Little Rock City Director Kathy Webb (right) tour Stocked & Reddie on July 15. Photo credit, Katrina Dupins
Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, gave a $100,000 Chancellor’s Circle grant to Stocked & Reddie and the Culinary Medicine Curriculum to help establish both efforts.
“We knew that if we were going to have a food pantry, we needed to have volunteers and people willing to donate food and money,” said Gardner. “The pantry couldn’t be something that was a top-down effort; it absolutely needed the support of the entire campus to thrive.”
And so the idea of hosting a Feed the Funnel party in conjunction with The Pack Shack was born. On July 9, more than 170 employees donned hairnets and gloves to make meal kits using dry ingredients measured and funneled into packaging.
Members of Team UAMS pour ingredients into the funnel to make the meal kits. Participants made more than 36,000 meals at the Feed the Funnel event. Photo credit, Bryan Clifton
“The Feed the Funnel party provided a fun way for employees to volunteer, and it provided more than 36,000 meals for the pantry,” said Johnson.
Gina Drobena, M.D., an associate professor of pathology in the COM who also works with the Culinary Medicine program, said she wanted to volunteer at the event because “it is really important that we support our fellow employees.”
“Working with the Culinary Medicine program, I understand the connection between food and health. We need to support our fellow employees and their families and their health.”
Members of Team UAMS weigh and seal the completed meal kits. More than 170 employees volunteered to help at the Feed the Funnel event July 9. Photo credit, Bryan Clifton
Cherika Robertson, M.Ed. MLS, an assistant professor in CHP’s Medical Laboratory Sciences program, said two years ago, a student in her program was having financial problems and didn’t have enough to eat.
“He was living off of lentils and tortillas,” she said. “Every time we had an event with leftover food, we gave it to him. The student’s story so moved everyone in our department that we presented the problem to the National Society for Clinical Pathology, which has now established scholarships for students to help with this issue. I am so glad that UAMS has taken this step to help our students and employees.”
Robert McGehee, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School, said he had been thinking about food insecurity since he saw the student survey results.
Mark Trickey and Robert McGehee, Ph.D., box up the finished meal kits. McGehee said he was surprised to learn that food insecurity was a problem among students at UAMS.Kelly
“I was a little bit floored to find out what an issue it was here at UAMS,” he said. “I knew about food insecurity on mostly undergraduate campuses, but it never entered my mind that we had food insecurity issues at the professional school and Graduate School levels.
“I am very excited to do whatever I can to help the food pantry. I think creating the pantry is a fantastic move on the institution’s part.”
In addition to the Feed the Funnel efforts, employees and students brought nonperishable items for the pantry, resulting in another 3,500 meals, Johnson said.
The opportunities to help with Stocked & Reddie are ongoing, said Corbett. Students, employees and members of the community can sign up to volunteer at the pantry, purchase reusable grocery bags (ship to UAMS Slot 574) make a monetary donation by credit card or payroll deduction or bring items during periodic food drives.