U of A Staff Member Named to the "20 in Their 20s" Statewide List

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Claire Allison, program coordinator for the Campus Hunger Initiative.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Claire Allison, the program coordinator for the U of A’s Campus Hunger Initiative in the Center for Community Engagement, will be featured in the Arkansas Business Journal’s “20 in Their 20s” edition. The extended article features a variety of young up-and-coming stars in Arkansas, some who work for commercial organizations and others for non-profits.

The article will appear Sept. 12th

"I was so honored to be nominated by a former colleague and truly surprised to learn I had been selected,” said Allison. “I feel so fortunate to get to work with an incredible group of student leaders who are tackling critical community issues, and I am so grateful for Arkansas Business Journal's recognition of this work."

Allison began working at the Center for Community Engagement as a graduate assistant in January 2014 while earning her master’s in public administration and nonprofit studies. She started working full time for the Campus Hunger Initiative in April 2015, advising student committees that operate the Jane Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry and the Razorback Food Recovery program.

The Food Pantry was founded in 2011 by students in the Volunteer Action Center to address hunger on campus. It currently serves an average of 300 students, staff, faculty and their households each week.

Allison helped establish the Razorback Food Recovery program in 2014. This is the first campus-based food recovery program in Arkansas and one of the first in the Southeastern Conference. The program is designed to reduce food waste and provide unused food to people who need it – through the Food Pantry and other local agencies. Razorback Food Recovery works with Chartwells Food Service and retailers in the Arkansas Union to recover and distribute excess, unserved food. They have recovered 75,000 pounds since the program started.

Allison has been instrumental in developing partnerships with Tyson Foods, the Walmart Foundation, and other funders to expand these two programs. In the process, she has developed a model university food recovery program with mentoring and training programs to help other colleges and universities start their own pantries and food recovery projects. This mentoring program provided assistance to pantry programs at Arkansas State University, Northwest Arkansas Community College, and the University of Arkansas Little Rock, along with a food recovery program at Arkansas Tech University.

Last year Allison was instrumental in organizing the national Food Waste & Hunger Summit, hosted on campus by the Center for Community Engagement and the Campus Kitchens Project. That event brought together more than 250 individuals representing national nonprofit organizations and  hunger relief student groups from across Arkansas and beyond. Its featured speakers included U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

Allison is originally from Berryville. She is the daughter of Glenda Allison of Berryville and Randy Allison of Golden, Missouri. She graduated from Berryville High School and earned a bachelor of arts in environmental studies from Hendrix College. She later worked on water conservation projects with the Kings River Watershed Partnership. She has also worked with the Girl Scouts - Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas Council. 

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.