Izzy’s Food Pantry Provides Essential Food Items to Islander Students

To ease the burden of food insecurity amidst supply shortages, whether real or perceived, Izzy’s Food Pantry at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi has organized an event to provide grocery bags of food and essential items to Islander students in need. Islanders who attended the April 2 event received bags of 12 food items and other essentials. These pre-packaged bags included proteins, meals in a can, canned vegetables, fruits, and soups.

Community sponsors of Izzy’s Food Bank, including H-E-B, the Coastal Bend Community Foundation, Whataburger, and the Coastal Bend Food Bank have continuously lent helping hands through generous donations of food and supplies throughout the fall and spring semesters. Additional new support from H-E-B and the Coastal Bend Food Bank during the city/county Stay-at-Home order has allowed for the ongoing operations of Izzy’s Food Pantry, including weekly food distributions.

For more information on Izzy’s Food Pantry and events similar to this one, visit foodpantry.tamucc.edu. For more information on how Texas A&M-Corpus Christi is responding to COVID-19, visit tamucc.edu.

Dr. Miller: Today is part of a normal process that we have here on campus to help our students that have food insecurities, which is Izzy’s Food Pantry. But we have moved Izzy’s Food Pantry downstairs here in the University Center to allow for social distancing and to make sure that we have a safe environment to distribute food to our students who have food insecurities.

Julie Shuttlesworth: We’ve basically just taken these HEB bags and packed them full of these items – a variety of these items We have enough pre-bagged today to be able to accommodate 116 students, but the good news is we were able to get more for next week. We’re going to be able to accommodate about 240 students next week.

Micaela Hernandez: An event like this just really helps out our students here at out community here at TAMU-CC, and it just provides for students who need it and know that we’re always there to help them.

Raejaenicke Boisley: A lot of us can’t go to the grocery store, especially because of the stay at home order and a lot of people can’t be with their friends to take them to grocery store, so having this on campus nearby so you can walk to it is helpful.

Dr. Miller: We’re doing everything to follow all the rules laid out by the CDC and also by the Governor and the City and Judge Canales to make sure we’re following all the social distancing rules. Much like you see in the grocery store, outside we have the spacers. Everyone inside is wearing masks and gloves. All the packaging, everything was sanitized before it was put into packages. We’ve pre-packaged, so people aren’t wandering around touching things. It’s a grab and go kind of environment. So, we took every precaution we could to make sure that this is a safe environment. Today, it’s our Student Engagement and Success staff and student workers helping to distribute food, but we absolutely could not do this without our partners. We have an incredible partner in H-E-B. H-E-B is the hero for everyone right now in our community. So, they’re working with the Food Bank as well. So, we’re going through the Food Bank to be able to bring in items here, and H-E-B is sponsoring that. We also received a grant from the Coastal Bend Community Foundation to also to support us throughout the year.

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