Xavier University recognized that students were experiencing food insecurity, too often having to choose between eating and paying for other essentials.

“It's not just a Xavier problem, it's everywhere,” says Jennifer Paiotti, Associate Director of Business and Operations for Auxiliary Services. “Some have to choose between books and food – or are they going to be able to drive to campus or will they have to eat a bag of chips at night?”

Auxiliary Services collaborated with multiple campus departments and utilized the Mobile Ordering App, Mobile Credential, and Transact System Enterprise to create the meal share donation platform.

“As higher education, it's unacceptable,” she says.

To address the issue, Xavier created their Food Insecurity Meal Share Program, enabling meal plan holders to donate a meal to a student in need. In just the first few months of the pilot, more than 15% of meal plan holders donated a meal helping nearly 10% of students facing food insecurity.

For campus card programs and auxiliary services, the best part is Xavier launched the program using only existing technology.

Xavier Auxiliary Services collaborated with multiple campus departments and utilized the Mobile Ordering App, Mobile Credential, and Transact System Enterprise to create the meal share donation platform.

Paiotti stresses that any campus card office can take simple steps to help fight hunger on campus.

Click the image at the top of this page to check out the full video.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Jennifer Paiotti. I am the Associate Director of Business and Operations for Auxiliary Services at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

My presentation this week is Hungry to Learn, our food insecurity program that we developed at Xavier University.

We found in 2016 that many people on campus – and it's not just a Xavier problem, it's everywhere – have to choose between books and food or are they going to be able to drive to campus or are they going to have to eat a bag of chips at night.

And as higher education, it's unacceptable.

So at Xavier University, we launched a pilot program this year where we utilized our transaction system through our campus ID services, we utilized our mobile ordering app, and we utilized our mobile ID or mobile credential to create an autonomous food insecurity program.

Students have an opportunity, meal plan holders, to donate one meal utilizing the mobile ordering app and that gets placed into a meal plan donation pool.

We call it meal sharing.

And then students that are battling food insecurity, maybe they were able to purchase a small meal plan, but it's ran out, or they had some dining dollars, or things like that, and they just don't have it anymore.

They're able to go out to the mobile ordering app.

They can request a meal from the meal plan pool.

It is then brought into the system.

A meal plan is added to their mobile ID and they walk in and tap in just like every student.

So there's no kind of peer pressure.

There's no ability to know who's hungry and who's not.

Everybody looks the same and that's why it works for us because we are all for one.

The mobile ordering app, it works exactly like you would ordering a burger.

So you go to the meal share location, you select share a meal, the tender is share a meal so it automatically adds, and then you check it out with your ID.

That's it.

So we have had 16% of students who have a meal plan, we have 16% of them have donated just in this pilot phase from November to now.

And then we have been able to help 9% of students that are facing food insecurity in just this time with many of them repeats.

And the great part about it is that some of these are multiple students who request it so we're able to actually work and collaborate with student success on retention or issues that may be happening outside of the classroom to help further the student success at Xavier.

Starting a process would be relatively seamless on your campus, especially if you're able to collaborate with your transaction partner.

You can create a meal plan that's inside of your system already.

If you have a mobile ordering app that's with your on campus, then you can actually then transfer that data in.

If you are an ID campus, you can easily with an actual still physical ID, you're able to get that meal plan onto that ID or if you are a campus with a mobile credential because it is basically just a meal plan, you're easily able to transfer that to the student.