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Minnesota State University junior Francesca Goma started frequenting the Campus Cupboard food shelf last year and now visits a few times each week to restock on food.

An MSU international student, Goma is a typical recipient of services there, as more and more of the university’s international students are food insecure and seeking help.

“I learned about it from other classmates,” Goma, a mechanical engineering major, said of the Campus Cupboard. “It’s helped me lower the cost of living here. It’s really helped me.”

Located next to MSU’s Fine Arts Building, the Campus Cupboard is just off campus at 331 Dillon Ave. The food shelf has been operational since 2015 and was for many years a “well-kept secret,” said Becky Menk, the Campus Cupboard coordinator.

The food shelf is supported by Crossroads Campus Ministry. What started as a student project in 2015 grew from one shelf in an office to a 12- by 15-foot room in the basement.

“This July we decided to move to the main floor because of the exponential growth we’ve received,” Menk said. “We have nearly doubled in size in square footage.”

The food shelf was serving about 25 students a week before COVID, she said, but the need increased to more than 80 students now served per week.

Among the needed Campus Cupboard donations are tea and coffee, ginger, coriander, corn starch, baking powder, baking soda and vanilla, or any other form of extract. In addition, rice, pasta, cooking oil, dishwashing detergent, laundry pods and dryer sheets are in demand, Menk said.

International students are often food insecure because they’re not allowed to work off campus due to visa restrictions, she said.

“So they’re really in a pickle in a lot of ways because they’re so limited in income,” Menk said. “Many are Muslim and have dietary restrictions.”

The Campus Cupboard is one of the few food shelves in the state to provide halal meats, she said. She said she volunteers because “the kids are great.”

The food shelf is seeking volunteers as well as donations. They are serving 715 households, Menk said. “Now you know why we needed more space.” 

While international students are the largest subset of those served at the food shelf, there are also many other Minnesotans who are food insecure and seeking help, she said.

Eighty-five percent of their students are international students, Menk said. “They are literally, in some cases, starving,” she said. “One man said he’d almost starved to death.”

The Campus Cupboard has distributed nearly 150,000 pounds of food to students in the first 11 months of this year, which includes food purchased through Second Harvest Heartland in the Twin Cities and rescued food from the west Mankato Cub store.

“We actually have a world map in the hallway where we ask each student to put a pin on their country of origin and it’s heartwarming to see where everybody came from,” she said.

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