On Jan. 8, the DU Food Pantry held its grand reopening event after it was closed during most of the fall quarter. 

The Food Pantry was opened in 2017 by students in the Center for Sustainability (CFS) as an initiative to combat food insecurity on campus. For the last seven years, students at CFS have worked tirelessly to operate the Food Pantry, regularly fighting against constraints imposed by the university. 

The biggest obstacle to operating the DU Food Pantry was often funding. We were funded entirely by grants and donations, all of which were largely a result of outreach by the students who ran the Food Pantry. Aside from some emergency funding last academic year when the Food Pantry was seeing more patrons than ever before, the university has never funded the Food Pantry. 

The DU Food Pantry served 382 community members regularly during the 2023 fall quarter. We tried many different modes of service, from our most popular grocery store model to a grab-bag system that proved more challenging than supportive of patrons’ needs. 

Then, the university slashed the CFS budget, through which the Food Pantry employees were paid. This left most of the students who ran the pantry—and nearly 30 other students from CFS—jobless. With this cut, the DU community lost its thrift store, bike shop, gear garage and temporarily, their food pantry. 

Over the summer of 2024, the Food Pantry transitioned to Student Affairs and Inclusive Excellence (SAIE) with seemingly very little warning. SAIE was not given extra funding to run the Food Pantry, nor were any of the CFS students familiar with the Food Pantry given the opportunity to transfer to SAIE to continue working for it. Given their lack of support from the university, SAIE did the best with what they had to reopen such a vital resource. 

At the reopening event, two names were mentioned so many times that I lost coun—and I bet you can guess whose they were. Chancellor Jeremy Haefner and Provost Mary Clark were thanked again and again for playing fundamental roles, not just in the re-opening of the Food Pantry, but in the fight against food insecurity on campus. Not only is that insulting to those who were actually fundamental in this fight, it is laughable that the very people responsible for the Food Pantry’s initial closure are being praised for its reopening. 

Chancellor Haefner, who makes over a million dollars per year, is no champion of food justice. Mary Clark, who makes more than half a million dollars per year, does not deserve your praise. In fact, during the spring of 2023 when the Food Pantry opened in its Driscoll Commons location after being closed for months, the Chancellor’s office asked us to delay our opening to a more convenient time to accommodate his photo-op. We refused. 

In my two years working at the DU Food Pantry, I never once saw Chancellor Haefner nor Provost Clark step foot in that space. They are no friends of the Food Pantry, and they do not deserve your thanks. 

It’s important that you know the names of those truly deserving of your gratitude—those who have fought for years against obstacles imposed by the institution just so the Food Pantry could continue to exist. Kayla Fatemi-Badi spent her entire time at DU fighting for food justice. Wren Phillips managed the Food Pantry for years—and still would if given the opportunity. The Food Pantry would not be what it is today without these two individuals. Below is a non-exhaustive list of students, both current and former, who deserve your thanks for playing fundamental roles in fighting food insecurity on campus. 

Zoe Evans-Funk 

Nicollette Tanino-Springsteen

Amber Begay

Josie Herring

Audrey Hartfield

Abdi Mohamed

Griffin Meyer

Brittany Kay

Russel Yohannan

Paul Ciarcia

Jennifer Sutherland

Hannah Cooper

Rather than singing the Chancellor’s and Provost’s praises, I encourage you to consider those who actually deserve such recognition. If there is one thing DU and its administration do well, it’s taking credit for successes that aren’t their own.

Don’t let DU fool you into believing their carefully crafted facade of care.