Support Feed the Pack as Pantry Bowl Approaches

While the NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill football teams get ready to square off for their annual rivalry game on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend this year, throughout the week, a larger competition will take place positively impacting thousands of students at each university. 

For the fourth straight year, the Wolfpack and Tar Heels will square off in the Pantry Bowl, an annual competition to raise money for NC State’s Feed the Pack Food Pantry and UNC’s Carolina Cupboard. 

Donations will be accepted through the Pantry Bowl’s website Nov. 24-Dec. 1, and this year’s Pantry Bowl will have a challenge match – if Feed the Pack exceeds last year’s gift total of 1,634 gifts, donors Greg and Catherine Booth will give $10,000 to Feed the Pack. 

“We wouldn’t be able to run, thrive and operate the way we do without the Pantry Bowl,” said Pack Essentials Program Director Stevie Kimmet. 

In last year’s Pantry Bowl, Feed the Pack, which operates under the umbrella of the Pack Essentials program to combat food insecurity at NC State, received a total of 1,634 gifts and raised over $125,000. Kimmet said the gifts covered over a third of the program’s operational and food expenses for the entire year. 

Since the Pantry Bowl’s inception, NC State and UNC have combined to raise nearly $450,000. 

Feed the Pack has already seen the impact of thousands of small gifts adding up – a Day of Giving challenge allowed for the purchase of a custom, branded van for Feed the Pack that just arrived in October. 

The impact of the van will be immense – Feed the Pack conducts food donation pickups six days per week from partners such as the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, Food Lion, Publix, the Hindu Society and Raleigh City Farm. Of the over 160,000 pounds of food that the program distributed last year, over 143,000 pounds came from total donations, including donors bringing food to the pantry. 

The custom van will also allow Feed the Pack more visibility, and the ability to hold events such as pop-up donation drives on the Brickyard or at NC State tailgates. 

“I think it gives us more flexibility and visibility for our work, and reduces some of the money that we are spending while also lightening our load on the administrative end,” Kimmet said. 

Over 98% of Feed the Pack’s operating money for a given school year comes from donations, adding importance to the program’s goal of increasing its gift total from last year. 

“That’s an awesome sign that we’re growing the base of the work that we’re doing,” Kimmet said. “For us, it doesn’t matter if it’s a $10 donation or a $10,000 donation. We need it all, and when we see that more people are giving across this area or beyond, that is a sign that we have more sustainable forms of support, because we can’t count on those major gifts every year. So the more people that are making a planned gift of $50 or $100 a year, the better.” 

Feed the Pack shared some examples to demonstrate the impact of smaller gifts that add up for the pantry’s services: 

• With a $10 donation, Feed the Pack can purchase one case of mac and cheese.
• With a $15 donation, Feed the Pack can purchase one case of laundry detergent.
• With a $25 donation, Feed the Pack can purchase 30 bags of spinach.
• With a $40 donation, Feed the Pack can purchase 50 pounds of potatoes.
• With a $50 donation, Feed the Pack can purchase a 50-pound bag of rice and a 50-pound bag of garbanzo beans.

All of that purchased food allows Feed the Pack to provide a grocery store atmosphere in North Hall, allowing students to choose fresh produce, meat, dairy and other essentials. 

“These donations make a huge impact, and help hundreds of students who visit the pantry every week,” said Pantry Manager Alyssa Griffin, a second-year graduate student studying marine, earth and atmospheric sciences.

For Griffin and other students who work for Feed the Pack, it’s a chance to help the campus community combat food insecurity. 

“It’s very important to me,” Griffin said. “I got involved with food insecurity in undergrad. I think it really just opened my eyes to how privileged I grew up. I just knew I wanted to help tackle that issue. I like to apply my scientific knowledge to food insecurity at NC State.”

As NC State looks to win the Pantry Bowl for the third time in four years, Feed the Pack continues to serve as a more critical resource than ever. 

In 2023-24 alone, the Pack Essentials team responded to 1,058 applications, provided over $170,000 in grant funding and distributed over 4,500 donated dining hall meals.

“This resource is essential to our community,” Kimmet said. “It is pressing and urgent to support this program. These are real students, real members of the Wolfpack who need help making it through their education so they can go to class and focus. This is an easy, tangible way to support our students.”