Some NC State students are on the verge of going hungry. One makes sure they won’t
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- Alyssa Griffin manages Feed the Pack, which serves over 300 people weekly.
- A 2024 NC State survey found 30% of students reported food insecurity.
- Griffin won Food Lion’s Lion Heart Volunteer Award and the pantry received 10,000 meals.
As a teen, Alyssa Griffin didn’t imagine that college students could really go hungry. “Aren’t they all rich kids?” she thought.
But during her time as an undergraduate at Plymouth State University in her home state of New Hampshire, she realized she had been wrong.
That’s when she first became involved with campus food pantries. And she hasn’t stopped.
Now, Griffin is at NC State University, getting her doctorate in atmospheric science. She is also the manager of Feed the Pack, a food pantry that serves more than 300 NC State students, staff, and faculty per week. It’s a big job. She manages volunteers and staff, coordinates food pick-ups, works on hunger relief efforts across campus, ensures food safety, and manages data systems on visits and inventory.
In college, when young people are often on their own for the first time, surviving on ramen noodles is a common quip. But there’s a fine line between a joke and genuinely not knowing where your next fresh vegetable is going to come from.
Some students have to make difficult choices between tuition, rent and groceries, according to a 2017 study on food and housing security among NC State students.
There are times that choice means going to bed hungry.
Rumbling stomachs
A 2024 survey of NC State students found that 30% of students reported food insecurity, according to the university — seven percentage points higher than the national average. Food insecurity means limited or uncertain access to adequate amounts of nutritional food.
The 2017 study outlines some of the reasons this may be the case: financial aid hasn’t kept up with inflation; affordable housing is harder and harder to come by; students may select a less complete meal plan in order to save money; jobs available to college students don’t pay well; students are without family support for the first time.
“This is a serious concern because food and housing insecurity is associated with poor overall health, high emotional distress, missed and dropped classes, delayed graduation, and drop out,” the study reads.
The 2024 survey also reported that 11% of students had dealt with housing insecurity, and 14% experienced homelessness at some point in the year prior.
When Griffin got to NC State, she feared she wouldn’t have time to dedicate herself to her efforts to help struggling students like she had in undergrad. The Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric studies promised a rigorous course of study. She had just moved away from home for the first time.
“But I found that I love this work so much,” Griffin told The News & Observer. “I’ll always find the time and ability to make it work. So that’s what I did.”
Food pantry manager gets a heartwarming surprise
Now, she’s become an icon at the pantry. Her volunteer team has been referred to as “a little army of Alyssas.”
Griffin dreamed up the song request box, so hungry food pantry visitors can listen to their favorite songs while they pick out their free food — including produce, bakery items, pantry staples and more — no questions asked.
In her early days at NC State, international student Shishira Puttaswamy was living paycheck to paycheck. She leaned on Feed the Pack to make ends meet. But she graduated last spring, and now, she works with Griffin at the food pantry.
“Alyssa is like a big brother for all of us. We always feel like she is here with us, supporting us,” Puttaswamy said. “We are more like a family than a workspace.”
And on Thursday, Griffin got a surprise that she could hardly believe.
Griffin’s friends at the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina nominated her for Food Lion’s hunger relief program awards, the Feedys — and she won.
Alyssa was presented with the Lion Heart Volunteer Award, of which just one is given per year across Food Lion’s 10-state area. Leaders from Pack Essentials, the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, and Food Lion gathered at the food pantry on Hillsborough Street on Thursday to surprise Griffin with an award — and a donation of 10,000 meals to the pantry.
And despite it being a surprise, she was conveniently dressed in Wolfpack red. Her shocked blush nearly matched the hue.
“Alyssa is the steady force behind Feed the Pack’s growth and lasting impact,” said Travis Nye, Food Lion’s local director of operations, as he presented Griffin with the award. “Feed the Pack provides thousands of meals and supports tens of thousands of visits each and every year, all because of Alyssa’s leadership. ... Her service is consistent and selfless. It’s rooted in a genuine desire to strengthen her community and uplift others.”
As soon as the photo ops were over, Griffin got right back to her comfort zone: gushing over the massive zucchini and squash shipment she got in that week from the campus farm.
