We want to maintain this program as part of the wider, student-led movement to end college food insecurity, and by having students working so closely with key administrators, we are able to have our voices heard in important aspects of the planning of this program. But additionally, having our team of students in the room still allows us to keep a student perspective in our program. Working with such supportive administrators allows our program to have access to resources that we, as students, would not necessarily have access to, such as advertising support throughout various locations on campus and prizes for our top volunteers from Dining Services. This wide variety of stakeholders allows us to be an efficient, creative, and collaborative team. From the Department of Behavioral Health, Dean of Students Office, Hillel, Dining Services, Auxiliary Financial and Support Services, and the Department of Human Development and Family Services. We currently have a variety of administrators and professors to our taskforce. L to R: Swipe Out Hunger Founder & CEO Rachel Sumekh, Co-Founder of Swipe Out Hunger at University of Delaware Katie Zimmerman, Co-Founder of Swipe Out Hunger at University of Delaware Esha Mishra, and Swipe Out Hunger Chief Strategy Officer Maddie Alpert McCarthy. While this was discouraging to hear, it also fueled us to continue to grow and strengthen the support we already had, and we think much of our success comes from having so many key administrators on our team working so closely with us, the students, to design this program to serve our peers. But we did have a few drawbacks, especially when networking with students and faculty who had previously pitched this idea to our administration. We were incredibly surprised by how receptive everyone was to our ideas, and many of our initial contacts led us to new connections who eventually joined our team. ![]() Deciding who to bring this idea to first was initially intimidating, but with the help of Maddie and the rest of the Swipe Out Hunger team, we were able to brainstorm different contacts, including current administrators and professors, as well as student-led organizations such as Blue Hen Bounty and Food Recovery Network, a student organization devoted to fighting food waste. While bringing new ideas for campus programs always presents a challenge, we were fortunate enough to find incredibly supportive and helpful administrators during our outreach process. When we learned about other college campuses having a Swipe Out Hunger program to donate meal swipes to students facing food insecurity, it seemed absolutely necessary to implement this program on our campus. However, there was no resource that allowed students full, hot meals or further, consistent access to such meals. Up until last year, the University of Delaware (UD) had resources such as the Blue Hen Bounty food pantry and the Student Crisis Fund to support students struggling with food insecurity. Pictured above: Katie presents key takeaways after an advocacy session during the 2019 Swipe Student Summit. ![]() ![]() After launching and implementing a successful program, Katie shares how she worked with administrators to make the collaboration so effective. Katie Zimmerman is in her fourth year at the University of Delaware and is the Co-Founder of the Swipe Out Hunger program, which started in Fall 2018.
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