Expanded meal swipe, Tetra donations open mid-semester

By Hope Yang     3/11/25 11:16pm

Following record donations last month, students will be able to donate meal swipes and Tetra until March 14, according to an Instagram post by the Student Association in collaboration with Student Success Initiatives, the Student Association and Housing and Dining.

The new program allows students with the on-campus 20 meal-per-week plan to donate any amount of meal swipes as long as their balance remains above 120. The form also allows Tetra donations in increments of 10 to support students with food insecurity.

The mid-semester program was developed after seeing that students still have many meal swipes left over after the first round of donations, said Taylor Breshears, associate director of SSI.

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“In the past year, we realized a lot of students … were ending the semester with so many meal swipes, so then we proposed our current solution,” Breshears said.

Jae Kim, the 2024-25 SA president, said mid-semester donations would meet students’ continuous needs. 

“Even with these swipes during the first round, [students are] not given enough to sustain them through the entire semester, and also if you miss the request deadline, you won’t have any,” said Kim, a Brown College senior. “We want to do something in the middle of the semester that’s another chance for students to get more swipes.”

Kim said H&D should implement an on-campus meal plan with fewer meal swipes. Currently, on-campus students are required to purchase Meal Plan A, which includes 375 swipes.

“It feels like solving a problem with a problem, making it so that on-campus students have to buy a meal plan with unreasonable numbers of swipes, and then distributing that to students with food insecurity,” Kim said.

Brown College junior Hong Lin Tsai said he has many leftover meal swipes after the first round of donations, and is happy to have the chance to donate again.

“Most of us still have dozens and even hundreds of meal swipes we wanted to give, but we weren’t able to,” Tsai said. “It’s really nice being able to address food insecurity and also … [look] out for our [off-campus] friends.”

The program also introduced Tetra donations for students living on campus over the summer, Kim said. 

“During the summertime, a lot of students stay on campus to do research on a stipend, but it’s not enough to cover all living expenses,” Kim said. “We were thinking that we could collect the Tetra donations from people who are graduating and have a lot left over and distribute it to students on a needs-based basis. Over the semester, Tetra is used for coffee and snacks, so that’s why we decided to [use] disbursements [for students to get meals] over the summer.”

In the first disbursement, Breshears said there were 473 requests for swipes and all 16,000 swipes donated were distributed. 

“We have noticed an increase in donations every year, which is phenomenal. That also means there’s an increase in request,” Breshears said. “In the very first round that we did this year … we had more requests than we ever received … even with a record amount of donations, it’s hard to meet all the need.”

Tsai, who is a member of the Rice Coalition on Hunger and Homelessness, said the program is important in meeting student needs.

“I come from a first [generation], low-income background, and I understand the needs of people to get necessary resources,” Tsai said. “I still push and strive for advocacy of ensuring people get the proper and right amount of food … [the program] is a really big and important thing.”

Tsai said he would like to see the program expanded in the future to include donations to faculty and associates. 

“It’s not only just food insecurity, but also for people who want to have a sense of belonging at our college,” Tsai said. “Food as a service is a way for us to connect.”

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