Walmart Foundation Gift Provides for Food Recovery and Pantry Expansions

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A $100,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation will allow the Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry to expand its offerings and continue to address food insecurity.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to provide program expansion for the pantry and its sister program, Razorback Food Recovery.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, these food programs have become increasingly important in serving the campus and Northwest Arkansas communities and will now have the opportunity to expand their offerings.

Charles Robinson, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, said, “I am very proud of the staff and students who continue to expand upon the efforts to address food insecurity for our campus and local community. I am also very grateful to the Walmart Foundation for its generosity. Now, we will be able to better facilitate the Center of Community Engagement’s mission of empowering students to become engaged citizens through service, experiential learning and practicing social value.”

“This grant is especially exciting, because it will increase our capacity to grow,” said Sage McCoy, food programs coordinator for the Center for Community Engagement. “Our staff is small but mighty, and our students’ dreams for our programs are even mightier.”

The Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry is a student-led emergency food assistance program, striving to serve clients with balanced meals through non-perishables and fresh produce from its own garden. Full Circle serves anyone with an ID from the U of A or the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and their households: students, staff, faculty and temporary or hourly employees.

Thanks to the grant from Walmart Foundation, the Full Circle Food Pantry will be able to expand its SNAP education, outreach and assistance, as well as increase equitable access to its resources for the campus and regional communities.

Razorback Food Recovery is a student-led, sustainability-focused food waste reduction program that recovers prepared, unserved food from on-campus sources and redistributes the food to local agencies around the Fayetteville area.

Since it was established in 2014, the program has recovered and redistributed more than 250,000 pounds of food. With this new grant funding, the program will be able to expand its efforts by building a successful relationship with the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank and a neighborhood market; creating volunteer opportunities and student leadership roles to manage the pick-up, sorting and distribution of goods; and improving access to nutritious foods.

“This funding will allow us to bring in four AmeriCorps VISTAs, who will give us the time and space to really dive deep into the potential of our programs,” McCoy said. “We will be able to increase accessibility to the services we currently offer while expanding and reimagining ways to get assistance to current and potential clients. Bringing new team members dedicated to a year of capacity building will allow us to explore, create and innovate, while keeping in mind our missions of combating food insecurity and decreasing food waste.”

About Philanthropy at Walmart: Walmart.org represents the philanthropic efforts of Walmart and the Walmart Foundation. By focusing where the business has unique strengths, Walmart.org works to tackle key social and environmental issues and collaborate with others to spark long-lasting systemic change. Walmart has stores in 26 countries, employs more than 2.2 million associates and does business with thousands of suppliers who, in turn, employ millions of people. Walmart.org is helping people live better by supporting programs to accelerate upward job mobility for frontline workers, advance equity, address hunger, build inclusive economic opportunity for people in supply chains, protect and restore nature, reduce waste and emissions, and build strong communities where Walmart operates. To learn more, visit walmart.org or connect on Twitter @Walmartorg.

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 fewer than 3% of colleges and universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A 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.