Syracuse University
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

The Food Pantry's are stocked with donated and purchased food and personal care items, available at no cost to all student customers with valid SU ID. The main campus pantry is open during regular business hours, some nights, and part of the weekend hours. The South Campus pantry is open during some business hours. All food pantries can be accessed at any time upon a customers need, via a quick text message or email. All hours are adjusted as necessary for our student. The food pantry's serves on- and off-campus community members. The South Campus Food Pantry is open during summer hours as it is more convenient for our students who are on campus for summer sessions.
All student customers entering the food pantries do not need to provide any personal details, except to show a valid SU ID. The suggested amount of food for customers is one bag of groceries each week, though we do not monitor what the students take for their consumption. The pantry also serves student families, and we suggest these customers take what is necessary for their families.
Food staples are donated by campus community members, and off campus community members. Donations are accepted and used to purchase items that are typically not donated. Any department or college can offer to host an Adopt-A-Month. To host an Adopt-A-Month the department is required to host a donation box or two, send an email with the request items with the request used by dates. The items are picked up by food pantry staff or volunteers.
The food pantries are used for student research, class projects, internship opportunities, and volunteer hours. The Hendricks Chapel pantry pays a fair wage for their paid students and along with the South Campus pantry they utilize students who need Syracuse University Community Service hours or student who want to volunteer on their own time.
When the pantry is closed, due to the University calendar, all customers are told in advance and can take as many of the food pantry items as they deem fit for their needs.

A garden was implemented during 2019 to ensure fresh produce was available to the customers who utilize the food pantries. Sustainability Management collaborated with the Facilities department, Hendricks Chapel, and Falk College of Sports and Human Dynamics, Food Studies program, (Falk College) to plan and install the first of several vegetable garden. All vegetables, fruit, and herbs grown in the garden are donated to the two food pantries on campus.
The Facilities Team were instrumental in procuring the space, building the garden beds, providing and amending the soil, and donation of some of our first vegetable plants and securing donations of two apple trees. Other donations were procured from off campus CSA’s and purchased by the collaborators.
The garden was planned with input from all collaborators to ensure the garden would meet the needs of all. As most of our students are not on campus for the summer months a student intern from Falk Colleges Food Studies program worked with Sustainability Management to oversee the garden for the first summer garden. The goal is to host student interns each summer when possible. We also seek campus community volunteers to help throughout all seasons to volunteer in the garden.
The garden provides workshops for educating the student, faculty, and staff volunteers around proper gardening techniques and harvesting. Once the volunteers understand the basics of gardening they can choose when they would like to volunteer. Open volunteer hours are also provided once a week for anyone who would like to help.
In addition to volunteer hours, the garden is used for curriculum integration and department hosted programs. Professors are encouraged to utilize the garden for research, educational purposes, and community service. The garden collaborators have worked with professors on signage, marketing, recipe development, and more. Campus Departments are encouraged to host activities in the garden, such as, helping plant in the spring/fall, help with summer chores, or to help winterize.
Sustainability Management also hosts a virtual cooking tutorial for students who want to learn how to use pantry staples along with fresh vegetables to incorporate them into a sustainable recipe. The students are given all ingredients and the recipe in advance. The students join live from their kitchens, using a virtual platform, to learn best cooking techniques and how to incorporate more sustainable recipes that are better for the planet. The virtual cooking lessons are hosted by a Chef to ensure all proper food prep and cooking techniques are used.

Through a Syracuse University Campus as a Laboratory for Sustainability (CALS) grant, an award was given to two assistant professors in Falk College of Sports & Human Dynamics to place six honeybee hives on campus during the summer of 2019.
Honeybees are a unique group of pollinators. They sip nectar to fuel their flight and they actively gather large amounts of pollen to feed themselves and pollinate local plants and vegetation. Their contribution as a pollinator helps support one-third of the world’s food production as well as the reproduction cycle of hundreds of bee friendly plants. This in turn benefits the local ecosystem and cultivates biodiversity. Unfortunately, North American
beekeepers are experiencing high colony loss due to a variety of diseases, use of pesticides, and the reduction of pollinator friendly and native plantings. To help bolster the local ecosystem and biodiversity, six honeybee hives were placed on Syracuse University grounds, offering educational workshops on beekeeping for the University and local communities, support bee friendly initiatives throughout the area, and to support Bee Campus USA initiatives.

We fully understand that honeybees are not native to our area, due to this knowledge we are only keeping and maintain six hives. Having only six hives ensures the honeybee’s will not cause any damage or out compete our native pollinator species for the nectar. To help ensure we are not causing any damage, a native pollinator garden was added to Pete’s Giving Garden in the summer of 2021.

Since their installation we have been able to harvest 400#’s of honey in 2020 and 125#’s in 2021. The honey is raw and unfiltered and placed in glass jars, then it is sold in our campus stores where all profits go back to support the bee’s and their hives.