Weeding Out Hunger: A Community Garden and Food Pantry Approach to Address Medical Student Food Insecurity

This project's objective was to build a community garden and a food pantry to ease food insecurity among medical students attending the University of Utah. Medical students planted and maintained a 400 square foot garden and hosted numerous skills workshops. Volunteers harvested 250 pounds and the food pantry oversaw the distribution of over 6500 pounds of other donated food items. Establishing a sustainable garden and food pantry contributed a significant amount of no cost healthy food to students. The magnitude of student involvement and utilization of all food demonstrates the need for novel strategies to combat medical student food insecurity.