Students seeking food assistance need to look no further, the Eagle Essentials Food Pantry provides supplementary food items, hygiene products, and menstrual products to anyone in need on campus.

• “The mission of the Eagle Essentials Food Pantry is to help any student who needs food or hygiene products,” said Casey Weaver, assistant dean of student care and well-being. 

The Eagle Essentials Food Pantry is a service for students on the Statesboro campus. 

• “I get joy in seeing a student who could be at their absolute worst, pull through and make it to graduation,” said Weaver.

The food pantry has grown tremendously since its opening five years ago.

• “We currently have about 155 users of the food pantry,” Weaver said. “Of the 155 students we probably have about 75 to 80 coming in weekly.”

Students utilize this helpful resource on campus to help get by.

• “I had a great experience at the food pantry, they have a lot of products that you wouldn’t expect,” said Georgia Southern student Jordyn Mobley. 

Students can donate food items through the dean of students office, to the food pantry directly by purchasing items on the Eagle Essentials Amazon wish list or by donating money online through debit or credit cards. 

• “My belief is if I educate one student on the food pantry, that’s one more student that knows about it, that could go tell 10 or 15 other students,” said Weaver.

With the cost of education and the economy, some students are sacrificing everything to receive an education.

• “One thing about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is that food and water are your basic needs,” Weaver said. 
• “If you don’t have the bottom pyramid, education is not a basic need because education falls in the third or fourth tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.”

Food insecurity and homelessness are considered serious threats to the Statesboro community.

• “The Statesboro area is considered a food desert, meaning there are not many resources for food insecurity and homelessness,” said Weaver. 

Food deserts are urban areas unable to obtain affordable or good-quality fresh food.

The food pantry was created out of the consolidation of the Georgia Southern Statesboro campus and the Armstrong campus in 2018. 

The idea was that if the Armstrong campus had a service the Statesboro campus needed to have it as well and vice versa.

The Armstrong campus had the Captain’s Cupboard Food Pantry so there was a heavy push for a Statesboro campus food pantry in 2018. 

• “In 2019, a committee was formed to determine what the needs of the food pantry were,” said Weaver. 

As a result of Georgia Southern moving to remote learning and the dining halls shutting down, the food pantry created mobile pickup spots for students to obtain food during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

• “The food pantry was supposed to open in the spring of 2020, and we all know Covid hit in the spring of 2020,” said Weaver. 

There was a soft opening of the food pantry in the fall 2020 semester. 

Some of the most popular items in the food pantry are hygiene products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, body wash and laundry detergent pods.

• “I regularly go to the food pantry to get laundry detergent, it is very helpful,” said Georgia Southern student Nick Daniels.