Students’ nutrition should come before competition

Madison Diemert
Editor in Chief

Minnesota State University, Mankato’s Student Government announced on Sept. 23 that there will be a food drive until Sept. 27. 

It is a competition between MNSU and Winona State University. 

The premise of the food drive is that students will donate to other students via the Student Activities Office, the Student Government Office and the Athletics Office.

Everything collected will then be sent to Campus Kitchen. Canned goods, toiletries, boxed foods and dollar donations are accepted. 

Competing against Winona State University is a great initiative to get students to donate, but there’s a problem with this proposition. 

If you remember, a study was done by assistant professor Carol Glasser and her class in 2018 on food insecurity at MNSU. 

This study found that nearly two-thirds of MNSU’s undergraduate students have or had experienced food insecurity. 

While this food drive is a great effort to help students in need, I think that we are forgetting that most of our undergrad students cannot actually donate. 

In the future, I believe MNSU’s Student Government should consider asking faculty and staff of MNSU to donate. 

Faculty and staff will generally be able to afford to donate food and toiletry items, or dollar donations. 

They will be much more financially secure and will likely have extra items to give away. 

I support our Student Government’s efforts in this project, and believe it was organized with good intentions (and hopefully we beat Winona!). 

I also love that our students are so willing to help each other in need. But it could have been planned differently so that students are not pressured to donate their own items that they might also need. 

Glasser’s study might not have been taken into account, but hopefully it will be considered in future attempts.