SEC Nation Partners With UT Food Pantry to Fight Food Insecurity

By Henry Hipschman

Reporting Texas

SEC Nation bus, Henry Hipschman/Reporting Texas

Campus food pantry UT Outpost partnered with traveling college football show SEC Nation this past Saturday in an effort to fight food insecurity. The Pantry, in collaboration with the show, hosted a food drive alongside the broadcast. 

“SEC Nation actually has been doing this with all of the schools over the last couple of weeks,” Kelly Soucy, Associate Dean of Students and head of UT Outpost, said. “It started at Mizzou [and] we were really honored to be picked.”

UT Outpost is a pantry available to all enrolled UT students, offering free access to meals and clothing. Every month, students who use the Outpost are allotted up to 20 pounds of food, with a limit of one visit to the pantry per week. If students are in need of clothing for career purposes, they may select up to two outfits per semester to keep. 

“Roughly one in four UT Longhorns experience some form of food insecurity,” Soucy said. “UT Outpost has seen 400 to 500 a week trying to make ends meet.”

With the pantry, UT Outpost is looking to provide relief to students who may need financial support.

“Obviously, food insecurity can be really extreme, and that’s a smaller percentage,” Soucy said. “But we also have students who maybe don’t get a paycheck or an emergency happens and they need to make ends meet for that month, and the outpost is there for that.”

Saturday’s food drive is the first time UT Outpost has had a partner like SEC Nation. The event brought in around 13 pounds of food for the pantry and $20 in donations. While the food drive itself may be the priority of Saturday’s event, it also provides an opportunity to raise awareness.

“Honestly, if we just get a name out and have the donation code, which SEC Nation is gonna broadcast to, that’s gonna be awesome for us,” Soucy said. 

Though UT Outpost was created in 2018, it is still working to raise awareness among students that it is available. With an event such as the Saturday food drive, not only are students discovering the pantry, but alumni as well.

“Not only does this help get the word out about UT Outpost to students on campus, I’ve met plenty of students that don’t even know this is a resource that is available to them,” Avery Simpson, Graduate Assistant for Basic Needs, said. “It also gets the word out there to alumni, potential donors and to just other people in the community that want to know about the resources that are available to students.”

To learn more about the outpost or to donate, go to the UT Outpost website.