STUFH - Students Team Up to Fight Hunger

Letters from STUFH participants

(7/27/10)
From Jeanna Kindle, Chief Product Acquisitions Officer at the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank:

Dan, I can't believe how much this program has grown since you first introduced me to STUFH. In 2009, 125 universities, colleges, trade schools, high schools, fraternities, sororities, and other educational facilities hosted food drives.

We received a total of 682,088 lbs in 2009 from 1,146 Food Drive sponsors. As a result of STUFH, 125 of the sponsors and 66,851 pounds were from educational facilities! What makes this even more interesting is that as the economy remained in the doldrums students throughout Los Angeles County continued to find new and innovative ways to make a difference to those in need.

The students, faculty, and organizations at USC continued with their Dining Dollars Program. In essence, the students who have extra funds on their dining cards, purchase shelf stable food and donate that product to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank. The USC and UCLA Crosstown Food Drive Rivalry continued -- in 2009, they ended the year with "The Battle of the Cans" at the annual cross town rivalry football game. Although USC was victorious on the field for the third straight year, UCLA brought in the most cans for the third straight year. Nevertheless, I told both my daughter-in-laws (who work at the competing schools) Alexandria (USC School of Architecture) and Nakia (UCLA Transportation Department) that I love them both equally.

Crescendo Charter School gave both USC and UCLA a run for top Food Drive Donor from an educational facility by bringing in 5,100 lbs of product. It looks as if you're starting them off younger every year. Thanks to Principal Scott McGuire, the dedicated staff, students, and parents at Crescendo.

Dan Khan, on behalf of those in need, I thank you for your hard work and efforts.

(7/13/09)
Kristin Reed, President of CKI, writes in with a great letter showing the great efforts and attitudes of STUFH participants and partners.

Greetings Daniel!

I wanted to take a quick moment to write you and say Thank You from the bottom of my heart for everything you do to help make the world a better place. I will be retired next month as President of Circle K International but I want you to know that STUFH will always have a place in my heart.

Although I may be done with Circle K I still have another year left in college and would love to help you spread the word, create resources, or help in any capacity. Essentially, if you need any help from SUNY Collegian you know where to find me!

Again, thank you for making a difference one stomach and one community at a time :) I've been blessed to work with such an amazing service partner!

Changing the World Together,
Kristen M. Reed
International President, Circle K International

(5/07/09)
A great letter from the new president of STUFH at the University of Illinois | Urbana-Champaign below:

Hello,

My name is James Constable and I have been elected by the former Exec Board to be the new President of this wonderful club. Although I am relatively new at it, I feel extremely honored to be a part of an organization that works hard to fight local hunger, and at the same time enjoys doing it! Last year the club was pretty small but this year a main objective is to expand the club in such a way where the word about STUFH is spread among the campus easily. As a team, we plan on organizing the club in such a way where more fundraising happens, since our main goal is donate as much as possible to our Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

I wish to keep in touch with you on how our club here at the University of Illinois is doing. Hopefully in time enough awareness of STUFH's mission will be heard and there will be more volunteering opportunities throughout our campus. I am aware of the past few years of tremendous success and I only want to help continue the growth of an organization that is truly special. Thanks!!

Sincerely,

James Constable
University of Illinois | Urbana-Champaign

(7/29/08)
A letter from Kristie Brinkley of the University of Central Missouri and the success of their efforts:

Every year our STUFH food drive gets bigger and better! Our entire campus thinks this is a great idea and we always have a good time as a group picking up the donations! My office always gets involved to pick up donations in addition to the volunteer students that participate. It's a great time to laugh and have fun. There have been many times we have had to "chase" food down the sidewalk. The box that we are carrying is just not strong enough and you can see greenbeans, soup, slim fast, etc. rolling down the sidewalk. We have laughed so hard it makes it difficult to carry your stuff. I am very thankful to have co-workers that get involved and help out. This past year I even had someone from another department get involved. Then, one of the best parts of the pick up is when we deliver the food to the Warrensburg Food Center. To see the look on Dottie's face when we arrive is WONDERFUL! She is always thrilled to see us and that makes it worth it all... Knowing that our campus is helping others!

When I got the phone call from Dan with STUFH 8 years ago, I was very excited to bring something like this to our campus. Our students here at UCM do a lot of volutneer work and I thought this would be a great way for our students to be able to give back to our community once again! Everyone was so cooperative on our campus and being able to collect food in our residence halls was so convenient for the students. I loved the fact that they were so willing to give their leftover food to the Warrensburg Food Pantry instead of throwing it away."

Eight years later we are still doing the STUFH program and it has expanded to so much more than food. We are now collecting clothing for our Big Brothers of Johnson County, school supplies for our Teachers' Warehouse and miscellaneous items for our homeless organization in our town. I think this is one of the best programs I have worked with and encourage all other universities and schools to get involved. It is so easy and so rewarding!

Kristie Brinkley, Coordinator
Volunteer Services and Non-Traditional Student Services
University of Central Missouri
Office of Campus Activities

(7/29/08)
Good morning Dan,

I started my Food banking career 8 years ago, as the Product Donations Manager. A few years later, I became the Product Donations Director, and a couple of years ago, I was named Chief Product Acquisitions Officer.

A large part of my job is to ensure that the Foodbank remain in a position to continue to provide the equivalent of 360,000 meals each week to those in need throughout Los Angeles County.

When I was introduced to STUFH, I was very excited about the prospect of college students getting involved in the community surrounding their campus. The chance to work with an energetic segment of the population that Foodbanks had historically not had access to was very exciting.

In addition to universities and colleges, trade schools and junior colleges are also getting involved in the program. USC has a program called Dining Dollars, in which students with money left on their dining cards use those funds to purchase shelf stable food items and put those items in collection barrels. Last year, UCLA (under the direction of their Transportation department) hosted a massive food drive which was very successful. This year, UCLA and USC are working on putting
together a cross-town food drive rivalry.

Needless to say, we have not been disappointed in our partnership with STUFH. Our relationship has grown stronger every year, and we're very happy to be affiliated with STUFH.

Jeanna Kindle
Chief Product Acquisitions Officer
Los Angeles Regional Foodbank
(323) 234-3030 x 129
www.lafoodbank.org

(6/9/08)
Dear Dan,
We are blushing with Theresa's wonderful compliments about the Buffalo Can Challenge and we were thrilled that Theresa and her group participated. Your site is amazing and I wish I knew more about it before starting our process. At this point we are considering having BuCC in 2009 around our spring football game.

We are still excited about the success of our first annual Buffalo Can Challenge and we could not have done it without the cooperative nature of the groups who participated in the organization of this event. This included staff, student groups and individuals. I have attached for your information our post event fact sheet which was sent to all organizers and participants as well as the press. Thank you for your
interest and please give us a call if we can answer any questions. Go Buffs!

With Gratitude,

Joyce

Joyce Kinde
Assistant Director
Office of Parent Relations and Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement
University of Colorado, Boulder

(5/25/08)
Teresa Ferrucci of the Food Bank for Monterey County in Salinas, CA writes in with this letter, which emphasizes the special need to feed the hungry in these tough times:

Mr. Kahn and Students of C.S.U.M.B.,

Thank you for your support with your end of school year food drive. The students contributed 234 pounds and every bit helps.

This has been a difficult year in Monterey County, with twice as many people requesting food assistance as in previous years and the food donations have reduced over fifty percent since Last year. Even many people with full-time employment simply cannot make ends meet because of the high living costs and low-wage industries in this area. More than ever, we need to pull together as a community to help those in need.

Your involvement is greatly appreciated. Food drives like these are very important for increasing students’ awareness of the need in Monterey County. I look forward to working With California State University in November for our annual Holiday Food Drive. It is the Biggest food drive of the year and with your help it can be our most successful!

Thanks again,

Teresa Ferrucci
Agency Relations
Food Drive Coordinator

(5/5/08)
Chiquita Briley of Mississippi State University writes in with great news on the end of the first food drive with the students at Mississippi State:

Hello Mr. Kahn,
We are FINISHED!!!!! Today the food pantries came and picked up their food. We had a total of 1,544 pounds and we served 7 pantries/group homes. I have attached the posters that the students created to put the word out on the food drive. Also we have a face book page called the Committee of 19. Please if you think other people that visit your website might want to be a part- by all means have them join. We probably will be posting more "conversation pieces" as we continue next semester. Also I wanted you to see our 1 minute of fame on the local TV station. (LINK)

Also we were featured in Student Express on the Miss State website, www.msstate.edu. Underneath the picture is the box called "student express". After the letter from the Interim President we are the 4th story with a picture. Thanks so much for just creating the idea of an end of the year food drive. It was work- but it was fulfilling work especially when you know that someone will be able to have food in their cupboard.

Peace,

Chiquita

(11/15/07)
A note from the University of Illinois and the success they had with starting a STUFH chapter:

I wanted to let you know that the first semester of STUFH here at U of I is going well! We have volunteered at the Eastern Illinois Foodbank and raised about $500 dollars for them during their Food for Families annual food and fundraiser. Actually, there was a newspaper article in the News-Gazette (the Champaign-Urbana newspaper) titled "Students have the right STUFH to fight hunger". They interviewed me about the group and how we raise money at night when people are going out to the bars carrying cash and have a more generous attitude. We only did it 4 times for two hours a night and made $500 dollars! Our next big event is a campus wide food drive at the end of the semester (1st 2 weeks in December- last week of class and finals week). We are going to put bins in all the dorms and then with enough manpower, we are going to go to all the big apartment complexes and collect like trick or treating!

I am so glad I started STUFH because I never really did any volunteering up until now and it is a really great feeling! Lisa Bralts at Eastern Illinois Foodbank is so great to work with. Other groups are starting to take notice and want to collaborate on projects, so it is a campus-wide movement!

Just thought I would keep you up-to-date!
Take care,
Jenny Westerkamp

(3/14/08)
Greetings Dan,
I just wanted to take a few minutes to once again thank you for your wonderful support and partnership. STUFH is bringing great attention to the growing need to feed throughout the country.

Each year, the numbers from the STUFH program continue to grow. This year, we're looking forward to getting even more colleges and universities involved as we host our first annual city-wide food drive, which will be part of the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank 35th Anniversary celebration.

We appreciate your time, commitment, and enthusiasm. Keep up the fantastic work!

Jeanna Kindle
Las Angeles Regional Food Bank

(11/15/07)
I wanted to let you know that the first semester of STUFH here at U of I is going well! We have volunteered at the Eastern Illinois Foodbank and raised about $500 dollars for them during their Food for Families annual food and fundraiser. Actually, there was a newspaper article in the News-Gazette (the Champaign-Urbana newspaper) titled "Students have the right STUFH to fight hunger". They interviewed me about the group and how we raise money at night when people are going out to the bars carrying cash and have a more generous attitude. We only did it 4 times for two hours a night and made $500 dollars! Our next big event is a campus wide food drive at the end of the semester (1st 2 weeks in December- last week of class and finals week). We are going to put bins in all the dorms and then with enough manpower, we are going to go to all the big apartment complexes and collect like trick or treating!

I am so glad I started STUFH because I never really did any volunteering up until now and it is a really great feeling! Lisa Bralts at Eastern Illinois Foodbank is so great to work with. Other groups are starting to take notice and want to collaborate on projects, so it is a campus-wide movement!

Just thought I would keep you up-to-date!
Take care,
Jenny Westerkamp

(7/09/07)
Hi Dan!

This year, the Indiana University students leaving the dorms for the
summer donated 3,647 pounds of food to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank.
This is 620 more pounds than last year!

Stephanie Solomon
Hoosier Hills Food Bank
Volunteer/Meal Share Coordinator
volunteer@hhfoodbank.org

(7/03/07)
Greetings Dan,

I just wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how well the
program is working for the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank. Some of the students at USC came up with a great program they call "Dining Dollars." Through that program we have collected well over 2 tons of food! At the end of the school year, the students use their leftover dining dollars to purchase non-perishable food which comes to the Foodbank.

The students at Cal Poly Pomona (my son's Alma Mater) use their
agriculture department to harvest products grown at the University. In conjunction with the generosity of one Del Monte, we received a large donation of bananas in addition to the food drive pounds collected as a result of the hard work of the Phi Upsilon Omicron members.

Cal State Los Angeles has also been a strong supporter of the Foodbank, as well as and the Kappa Kappa Gamas.

A few words simply aren't enough to convey our gratitude for your support and partnership!

Jeanna Kindle
Product Donations Director
(323) 234-3030 x 129
jkindle@lafoodbank.org

(7/02/07)
The University of Washington's Summer Scram program captures unwanted materials from approximately 5,000 departing students who live in the residence halls. Each June during move out, students throw away tons of reusable materials. The goal of Summer Scram is to divert those reusable goods, such as food, books, clothing, household goods, and cell phones, to charitable organizations.

Summer Scram 2007 provided eight "Donation Stations" at each residence hall from May 25 through June 9, 2006. Program partners included Northwest Center, Food Lifeline, and Better World Books/Mona's Children. Any materials that required special recycling and disposal, such as TVs, computer monitors, and refrigerators, were collected and handled by UW Surplus. Total weights for material collected at Summer Scram 2007 are as follows:

13,363 pounds of clothing (Northwest Center)
4,485 pounds of household goods (Northwest Center)
1,389 pounds of non-perishable food items (Food Lifeline)
1,250 pounds of books (Better World Books/Mona's Children)
30 pounds of batteries (UW Environmental Health & Safety)
17 pounds of cell phones (Collective Good)
3,852 pounds of special recyclables (UW Surplus)
110 pounds of toiletries and cleaning products (Real Change)

Thank you...
Kristin Elko
Program Coordinator
University of Washington Recycling Program
www.uwrecycling.com

6/14/07
"I am so pleased that the STUFH program was created! I feel this program is an easy way for students to give back to their local communities. It's a great feeling to know that unused food items are going for a good cause as opposed to being thrown away. Every year I get phone calls from the students wanting to know when we are going to start collecting food again... It's as if they can't wait for the collection boxes to appear! I enjoy working with our local Food Center and they are always very helpful in arranging times to drop off the donations."

Kristie Brinkley, Coordinator of Volunteer Services at the University of Central Missouri

(6/07/07)
Dan,

It was another successful year at the University of Arizona during
move-out. Residents were even more generous this year in donating items they didn't want to take or couldn't take home with them. Food donations were up from last year and we donated 3,720 pounds of food to our local Community Food Bank. In addition to food, approximately another 37,000 pounds of "stuff" was donated to local non-profits in our community. This included many microwaves, lots of clothing, bikes, furniture, pictures, stereo's, DVD players, small appliances and televisions! It is hard to believe without our collection program that all of this "stuff" would go into the trash - benefiting no one! It is a good feeling knowing there are people in our community that don't have to go "without" because of our program.

Deb Hanson
Deborah J. Hanson, ASID
Project & Environmental Coordinator
University of Arizona, Residence Life
hanson@life.arizona.edu

(3/15/07)
We distributed 7.7 million pounds of food last fiscal year in southern Colorado, and assisted approximately 85,000 people through a number of feeding programs. Our mission is to alleviate hunger in southern Colorado through helping to feed, helping to educate, and being advocates for those who are hungry.

Don Loyd
Care and Share, the America's Second Harvest Food Bank for Southern Colorado

(10/2006)
Cats for Cans was great this year! Last year brought in a little less than
4000 lbs. This year we have received 13,339lbs! Wahoo! Keep in touch with
me, I would like to try to get the dorms to donate at the end of the
semesters like we talked about earlier this year. Hopefully we can get that
going! Talk to you soon!

Natascha Phillip
Executive Director
Flint Hills Breadbasket
905 Yuma St.
Manhattan, KS 66502
(785) 537-0730

(7/2006)
Aloha Dan, We did have a very successful spring campaign with the University of Hawaii system with students and faculty raising thousands of dollars and pounds of food to help feed Hawaii's hungry. Thank you for your support! Mahalo for helping feed Hawaii's hungry!

Polly Kauahi, Director of Fund Development
Hawaii Foodbank, Inc.
2611 Kilihau Street
Honolulu, HI 96819

(8/2005)
I just wanted to say THANK YOU for your commitment to ending hunger and
for the creation of the STUFH organization. Our partnership with STUFH
and local schools in San Francisco will allow us to distribute more food
to our neighbors in need. This year, our goal is to distribute 25 million
pounds of food - enough to provide more than 53,000 meals to hungry San
Franciscans every day. Low-income people continue to face many
challenges, not least of which is a lack of recognition that they remain
susceptible to hunger. In 2004, local meal and food assistance agencies
reported that demand for their services increased by up to 20 percent. A
study from the New America Foundation reported that workers from the
middle and low end of the wage scale suffered real wage losses over the
last year, increasing the number of working families unable to acquire
enough nutrition. Many families, even with two working parents, make far
too little to live on, but too much to qualify for government food
assistance. The San Francisco Food Bank programs provide a critical
support for households trying to sustain a precarious juggling act between
rent, utilities, medical costs, transportation and food.

The Food Bank feels strongly that ending hunger is both a moral imperative
and a viable goal for San Francisco. STUFH's support will alleviate the
need for thousands of San Franciscans to make the agonizing choice between
paying for rent, seeking medical treatment, or eating. Thank you for
helping us pursue a stronger, healthier San Francisco!

Kathleen

Kathleen McMakin
Food Drives and Events Coordinator
San Francisco Food Bank
900 Pennsylvania Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94107
kmcmakin@sffb.org
www.sffoodbank.org

(8/2005)
Hi Dan,

I thought I would send you the results for our first "dorm dump." Both Whitworth College and Gonzaga University here in Spokane participated with us at Second Harvest to donate food as they exited the dorms. The school's raised just over 1,000 pounds of food for us.

We are so excited to do this event again and I think we came up with some better ideas to promote the drive and grow for next year. Thank you for your Web site; it was a great resource for us as we planned.

Best Regards,

Andrea Boyle

Special Events Coordinator
Second Harvest Inland Northwest
1234 East Front Avenue
Spokane, Washington 99202
(509) 534.6678 ext. 233
Fax: (509) 534.8252
aboyle@secondharvest.org

(8/2005)
Good morning, Dan,

On behalf of all of us at the Central Virginia Foodbank, I would like to thank you and STUFH for contacting the colleges and universities in the Central Virginia area to encourage their student residents to donate, not throw-away. In May, we were the beneficiary of 1,246 pounds of food from University of Richmond and 896 pounds from Randolph Macon College, directly resulting from your efforts. I look forward to working with you to expand the word throughout our entire service area.

Best regards,

Brenda Miller
Food Drive Coordinator
Central Virginia Foodbank, Inc.
1415 Rhoadmiller Street
Richmond, Virginia 23220
(804)521-3272

(8/2005)
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your call today - I thought I'd jot you a quick email before it
slips my mind. (We're in the middle of our biggest fundraiser right now!)

We had a great end-of-year drive this year with the University of
Washington. This was the second year we'd worked with UW and we've been
very pleased. This year they collected 2,202 pounds of food over the
course of two and a half weeks, with most of the food coming during the
few days surrounding graduation. The drive is run by the Recycling &
Solid Waste department - my contact is the program coordinator for the
department.

They staged outdoor collection sites near dorms at nine (9) areas of
campus. To combat our traditional Seattle rains, they set up tents at each
station and worked with several non-profits to get collection bins for
food, clothing and household items. Food Lifeline provided food
collection barrels and worked with our partner agency the University Food
Bank to check the barrels every day. Other non-profits made separate
arrangements and pickups for the clothing and household items. University
employees also monitored the donation stations daily for safety and
cleanliness.

The University did great signage to supplement our Food Lifeline posters,
and provided detailed maps for our drivers.

We did have the challenge again this year of kids throwing trash in the
barrels, and also some homeless folks in the area who bypassed the food
bank system by taking food directly from the barrels (we can only assume
they needed the food!), but overall it was a success this year.

Thanks,

Special Events Coordinator
Food Lifeline
www.foodlifeline.org

(2005)
"Our partnership with the Tucson Community Food Bank allowed 4,178 pounds in 2004 to go to needy individuals instead of to the landfill. What a rewarding feeling to know we prevented someone from going to bed hungry! The results not only show the amount of good "stufh" students throw away, but it also gives them an idea of the amount of good they provide by donating items they no longer want or need. We can make a difference!"

Deb Hanson
Project & Enviornmental Coordinator
University of Arizona

Dan,

So nice speaking with you this morning. As I said, America's second harvest calculates that 1.28lbs is a meal. We collected 686 pounds of food from dorms in Akron on Friday May 13, 2005. That's 536 meals that students at University of Akron made possible for people in their community. I believe the students who participate in STUFF feel a national connection to the impact they can have on hunger. Its surely a mistake to underestimate young Americans when they resolve to help out. I look forward to the next school break, when our Foodbank hopes students in the area will once again participate in this small step with huge rewards. You guys are great for coordinating such a drive and it means a lot to the people we serve that college students in Akron would show such compassion.

Best regards,

Ericka Abram
Food Donor Coordinator
Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank
546 Grant Street
Akron, OH 44311-1158
330-535-6900, ext. 125