ISU Chartwells receives large donation of food from MATTER/General Mills to be given to Benny’s Pantry on March 28

Both companies have donated a pallet of food for the campus community to pack into MATTER Boxes and donate to Benny’s Pantry, which offers emergency food assistance directly to the ISU community, particularly students experiencing food insecurity.

The number of schools participating have doubled and, in all, more than 20,000 MATTER individual box snack packs containing healthy food will be distributed this year.

“This is really cool for ISU,” said Mallory Pace, Chartwells ISU food service director. “We did it last year as well, when they partnered with 50 universities. This year they partnered with 100 and we were picked again. We are excited to help out our campus community in any way possible.”

Chartwells received the pallet of healthy foods and snacks on March 21. Chartwells employees and ISU volunteers and will be divvying the donated items into 400 to 500 boxes of food for Benny’s Pantry patrons from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, March 28, in the Pond Student Union near  Einstein Bros. Bagels.

The ISU event will be filmed live and posts will be made to Instagram Live @isufood using #GoodGoesRound and #OneMillionActsOfGood.

Foods received are shelf-stable, non-perishable items such as cereals, juice boxes and prepared meals including Whole Grain Cheerios and Nature Valley Bars.

 “It has been so inspiring to see college students come together and join forces with other campuses nationwide to do an act of good in their communities,” said Allison Curran, senior marketing manager at General Mills Foodservice. “We are proud to work in partnership with MATTER and expand our effort and impact even more communities this year.”

Quenton Marty, president of MATTER, added, “We created the MATTER Box program to activate healthy eating in order to give everyone a chance at a healthier life. It is a privilege to join with other like-minded organizations, like General Mills, to increase access to healthy food and nutrition education in new and innovative ways. We are very grateful for the support of General Mills and the colleges throughout the country participating in this impactful event.”

For a list of all participating campus locations, visit the MATTER website: https://www.matter.ngo/activating-healthy-eating/.