{"id":70900,"date":"2023-02-02T13:08:43","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=70900"},"modified":"2023-02-02T13:08:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:08:46","slug":"tiger-food-exchange-moves-locations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=70900","title":{"rendered":"Tiger Food Exchange moves locations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>STORY BY CAITLIN LEIKER<br>VIDEO BY RAEGAN NEUFELD<br>AUDIO BY TIM SCHOEPFLIN<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Tiger Food Exchange (TFE), managed by FHSU\u2019s Food and Hunger Initiatives, has permanently relocated to Room 138 of the Memorial Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The TFE operates like a local pantry, offering free food items for faculty, staff, and students. It will remain open during the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fhsu.edu\/union\/hours\/memorial-union-fall-2022-hours-4.png\">Union\u2019s hours<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nonperishable food has always been available, but now the TFE regularly supplies grocery staples like milk, bread, eggs, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They\u2019ve also started supplying personal care items like shampoo, conditioner, body wash, deodorant, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and feminine hygiene products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tiger Food Exchange moves location\" width=\"790\" height=\"444\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-1_h_IRTq3Q?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The organization was previously stationed in Forsyth Library, but was set to move due to eventual renovations. Since the TFE settled in the Union at the start of spring classes, they\u2019re wanting to maintain such expanded offerings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have been vigorously restocking,\u201d Peter Tramel said. \u201cThings have been going fast this semester.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tramel is an assistant professor of Philosophy. He manages the Food and Hunger Initiatives with Robert Duffy, the university\u2019s Drug and Alcohol Counselor with Health and Wellness Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The centralized location of the Union has enabled the TFE to partner with more campus organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Along with the TFE\u2019s student employees, volunteers through Health and Wellness Services have helped with the shopping and organization of the new space. One such volunteer, Jessica Albin, is spearheading a new project for the TFE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every week, student employees go shopping for fresh produce to give away to students, known as \u201cFresh Food Fridays.\u201d Since moving to the Union, Albin has been organizing \u201cMeal Kit Mondays,\u201d putting together bags of ingredients with a recipe for patrons to cook a full meal with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/FHU-Food-Pantry_mixdown.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Student Government Association has also been a main partner of the TFE in both online promotional efforts and connections to other campus organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s more communication going on, we\u2019re more in touch with the students, and the senators in SGA have a better feeling for what their fellow students are facing as far as the economic times we\u2019re in,\u201d Duffy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Tramel, generosity from the FHSU and Hays communities keeps the TFE afloat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDonations of food, donations of money to our Foundation account\u2026and we get funding from the Student Government for the pay of student workers, for garden equipment, seeds, and things like that,\u201d Tramel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through Duffy\u2019s explanation of TFE operations, there\u2019s been an air of \u201call hands on deck\u201d since the start of the semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re all pitching in together,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cWith the shift over here, and with what\u2019s going on with the cost of living right now, there\u2019s been a pretty big impact\u2026so there\u2019s going to be an increase in demand for what we\u2019re offering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the school year inching closer to the summer months, the Food and Hunger Initiatives team hopes to get their garden up and running again \u2013 another source of TFE produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re building greenhouses at the moment,\u201d Tramel said. \u201cWhen the weather gets nice, we\u2019ll be seeking volunteers again for help, and we hope to be able to provide food from the garden year-round, eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Duffy said that it\u2019s incredibly important to keep the TFE up and running, especially with inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe had done a survey\u2013before the pandemic, even,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cAbout a third of our students said that they were food insecure at some point during the semester, whether they didn\u2019t know where their next meal was coming from, or if they\u2019d have enough money to budget for food. If you look at the student population, that\u2019s quite a few people we\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another main part of the TFE mission is decreasing the stigma around using it. Tramel expressed that they want everyone to feel comfortable utilizing the resource, and not feel ashamed or embarrassed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The staff and student employees regularly encourage patrons to take what they need, even if it\u2019s just a granola bar or a bag of chips while studying in the Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They only ask that patrons anonymously tally the sign-in sheet in two columns: (1) how many people they\u2019re grabbing items for, and (2) how many items they take. This helps the organization keep weekly numbers on how they help the university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More information on the Tiger Food Exchange and other Food and Hunger happenings can be found on the organization\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/fhsufood\/\">Instagram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/fhsufood\/\">Facebook<\/a> pages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STORY BY CAITLIN LEIKERVIDEO BY RAEGAN NEUFELDAUDIO BY TIM SCHOEPFLIN The Tiger Food Exchange (TFE), managed by FHSU\u2019s Food and Hunger Initiatives, has permanently relocated&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":70903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3398,11],"tags":[14747,6579,14226,2774,14738],"class_list":["post-70900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","category-news","tag-caitlin-leiker","tag-fort-hays-state-university-tiger-food-exchange","tag-raegan-neufeld","tag-tiger-food-exchange","tag-tim-schoepflin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Tiger-Food-Exchange.jpg?fit=1072%2C683&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70900"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70915,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70900\/revisions\/70915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}