HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) – The University of Southern Mississippi, William Carey University and Pearl River Community College always have shared a common purpose in educating students in the Pine Belt.

Now, for the first time, these institutions are working together on a new shared passion: Feeding hungry students.

“We’ve got students on all our campuses (who) suffer from food insecurity, as well as employees,” said Lonnie Burchell, PRCC’s Faculty and Staff Association president/Poplarville-Hancock County campuses. “Having food banks to help them out is something we can all get behind and come together to do,”

Burchell also came up with the idea of bringing PRCC, USM and Carey together for a food drive that would benefit all three institutions.

“United Against Hunger,” was held Saturday in front of Corner Market’s Midtown location on Hardy Street in Hattiesburg.

The goal was to help stock food pantries at each of the institutions.

“Supporting each other in public just shows that we’ve all got a common goal in mind to serve our students and our staff on our campus,” said Sirena Cantrell, USM associate vice-president of student affairs/dean of students.

“Hunger is everywhere. It’s across all of our campuses.”

Southern Miss and PRCC have each operated food pantries on their respective campuses for several years.

William Carey University just opened its pantry, called the “Cobbler Closet” a few weeks ago.

“It’s something that we didn’t have and so, that’s something that our student government advocated for and I would say that it’s been a great help, even within the past month, we’ve seen increasing amounts of students utilize it,” said Anna Carroll, WCU Student Government Association president.

Burchell said he hoped all the institutions would continue to work together on future food drives.

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