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‘You can’t innovate on an empty stomach’

Two Tempe-based organizations experience pushback distributing food to those in need

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‘You can’t innovate on an empty stomach’

Two Tempe-based organizations experience pushback distributing food to those in need

Do you have limited or unreliable access to nutritionally adequate food? If so, you may be experiencing food insecurity. Don't let that scare you; this dilemma is not uncommon among ASU students. According to a 2021 Arizona Board of Regents report, 26% of the University's students are food insecure.

Pitchfork Pantry is a group that aims to fight this disparity. The student-run organization distributes food, along with hygiene products, clothing and nutrition education, to ASU's student body. Starting in 2017 by distributing canned food out of a Tempe dorm room, the Pantry now operates on all four campuses, providing a wide range of perishable and nonperishable food items.

"Food insecurity is directly linked to your mental health, your capacity for stability, not only on a personal, individual level, but also on an academic level," said Abby Noel, co-director of Pitchfork Pantry and a senior studying civil engineering. 

Just off campus, Tempe nonprofit AZ Hugs started hosting weekly picnics for the city's homeless population half a decade ago.

"It's three to five courses of food spread out through the afternoon so that people don't have to all show up at one time," said Austin Davis, founder of AZ Hugs and an ASU alum. "The idea is, here is a safe space where you can come and get your basic needs met … and if at any point you want to talk to us about getting off the streets, let's try to figure out a plan together. Turns out if you create that safe space, eventually people process what they need to process, work through it and at least attempt these next steps forward."

Even though food insecurity is a pressing issue for many Tempe residents, both Pitchfork Pantry and AZ Hugs have faced pushback. Pitchfork Pantry has struggled to gain material support from ASU, and AZ Hugs has faced operational barriers from Tempe authorities.

Pitchfork Pantry

"A lot of our conversations have identified that ASU does not like the idea of using a food pantry to counter food insecurity," Noel said. "They would prefer to go through quote unquote 'more innovative' means."

The organization has struggled to solicit support from the University. According to Bailey Holmes, co-director of Pitchfork Pantry and a senior studying chemistry, ASU grants the organization $600 per semester for the Tempe chapter, none of which is permitted to be spent on food. When ASU's Graduate Student Government voted last November to allocate $20,000 to Pitchfork Pantry, the group was unable to receive the funding due to differing account types and miscommunications with ASU's Educational Outreach and Student Services.

"We received a response saying we could not transfer the money to Pitchfork Pantry because of the type of account that they have," said Michael Kintscher, assembly president of GSG and a graduate student studying computer science. "We responded back asking for where that policy is or where those rules are. To my knowledge, we've yet to receive anything in writing confirming that."

EOSS also clarified that the Pantry cannot accept student fees into their account, or accept certain types of transfers from other student organizations, because of the way ASU Foundation accounts function. "There are certain student organizations that have asked to provide us with funding, and ASU administration has identified that they cannot because we are a part of the ASU Foundation," Noel said.

With Pitchfork Pantry's limited ability to garner financial support from ASU administration or student organizations, it has relied largely on off-campus food banks and pantries for assistance. Still, it's not enough to sufficiently meet their demand.

Oftentimes, the Pantry runs out of food before students have the opportunity to eat. "We had helped maybe 200 people and there were almost 200 people still in line," Holmes said of one distribution. "It sucks because some people were in class or some people have a job — something like that where they might not be able to get there in time."

Holmes said better funding would also allow the Pantry to serve more well-rounded and healthy meals, while Noel said it would allow for more meals that accommodate students' dietary needs and restrictions due to religious affiliation. 

"A major long-term goal for me would be to have a way to quantify what items we have in stock and to allow students to shop [for] them as if it's a typical pantry," Noel said. "So you have your need-based limit — let's call it four pounds of food — and you'd be able to go through the pantry and pick what you need and what you will actually use versus what we just have available to you."

Noel added that there are ways other than funding that ASU can support Pitchfork Pantry's mission, like providing them a permanent space, staff support or simply recognizing the work they do.

"We don't have the capacity to store the quantity of food to serve all the students that may have showed up for previous distributions," Pitchfork Pantry Adviser Maureen McCoy said.

In addition, staff support from the University could also allow the Pantry to be open longer hours, regardless of whether or not its student members are available.




Being student-run 

"The pantry isn't innovative," Vice President of Student Services Joanne Vogel told The State Press in 2021. "What some schools do to feed hungry students are bigger and bolder ideas than a food pantry. Those are the ideas we want to put in front of students."

READ MORE: Talks for permanent food pantry stall between officials and students, faculty

"You can't innovate on an empty stomach," Holmes said. "I've had a time when I wasn't sure when I was going to eat next because I just paid rent, paid all these things. … And one time I was able to get food from the Pantry while I was volunteering there, and after that I didn't need it again. I was out of that situation."

In a meeting with The State Press on March 4, ASU President Michael Crow said, "The food pantry is a valuable project and we support it in every way, and we can support it even more, but it’s not the solution. The solution to a student that has food insecurity is [for them] to come to the University and say, 'I have food insecurity, I need to look at my financial aid package, I need to look at my food package.' We will assist any student with any financial interruption that affects their food supply."

READ MORE: Michael Crow speaks on CRU at ASU, science funding, inclusivity, men's basketball

Kintscher emphasized that food insecurity isn't black and white. "The reality is that what puts people and students in these situations is often unpredictable," they said. "A medical expense comes up, maybe your bike breaks or your car breaks or you have some kind of expense you have to pay for. Those are often situations that will lead to a student or a person having to choose between 'Do I eat food this week,' or 'Do I fix the thing I need to get me to school everyday?'"

Kintscher added that ASU could help students escape the poverty cycle that causes food insecurity by paying student workers more and charging less for tuition. Crow said the University has student jobs that pay $20 per hour or more. "We can pay the federal minimum wage, which is seven something, but we don't," he said.

Although some student jobs pay $20 per hour or more, the minimum wage for student workers at ASU is $14.35, and the average student worker makes around $16-$17 per hour, according to job sites Indeed, Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter.

ASU's other ideas for more innovative strategies to fight food insecurity on campus have had drawbacks. "Based off their report to Arizona Board of Regents in 2023, those innovative means include a meal-swipe exchange program which provided only 60 meal swipes to students in that fiscal year," Noel said.

What makes Pitchfork Pantry's approach different from the administration's, according to Noel, is its relationship with the ASU community. While ABOR reported that students are often reluctant to discuss food security with administration, the Pantry has had no such issue.

"Being student-run, we are directly involved with our student population that comes to our distributions, and we've had many conversations [about] how we can better improve, how we can better serve," she said. "A lot of those conversations reflect not only student ideals, but also their struggles on a day-to-day basis.

"It's by being students and being able to communicate with our student population directly that we identified this need in the first place. This grew from students asking other students in a dorm, 'Are you able to get enough food to get through the week?' And it's that sort of communication that we're finding is missing from here and upper administrative levels."

Crow reiterated that Pitchfork Pantry has a place on campus but said when students have these issues, they need to "raise their hands."

"We're trying to find as many ways as possible to be helpful to students, but I think what happens in emotional moments — you get off track," he said. "Maybe you don't want to raise your hand. Maybe you’d rather go to the food pantry, so we support the food pantry and all that it's doing, but we also support the students."

AZ Hugs

"I'm banned from every park in the city and all the preserves," Davis said. "AZ Hugs is barred from hosting any events on Tempe [public land]."

The City of Tempe has not always been an obstacle in AZ Hugs' mission of distributing food and other essentials to the homeless community. According to Davis, the city once considered teaming up with the organization, but this changed when Rosa Inchausti became city manager in 2023.

"The city came to us and said, 'You have to get a special events permit for the Sunday family picnic,'" Davis said. "A special events permit is usually used for a big concert at Beach Park, a festival, a carnival — some sort of big event where there's an exchange of money. … That's a lot different from serving the hungry for free. 

"We still don't think what we do fits into needing this permit, but in an effort to kind of work with the city and continue serving those we serve, we did apply for the permit. The point of contention was the City said 'You have to stop for 60 days while we review your permit application.' … They wouldn't give us a definitive reason as to why we couldn't find a compromise where people were still going to be receiving these essential resources but also working within the guidelines of the city’s permitting."

AZ Hugs refused to go two months without providing its services to Tempe's homeless population. As a result, the organization's permit was denied.

"Access to food is a basic human right that we believe needs to be protected, and it didn't make sense to stop for 60 days," Davis said. "That's a really long time."

Davis received his first citation for distributing food without a permit in December 2023. Since then, he has been arrested twice and cited many more times. "I had at one point 60 or 70 counts of special event permit violation," he said.

Davis was first arrested in July 2024. "I got in the car and was headed to the picnic," he said. "There were undercover police officers in the neighborhood and they followed me out of the neighborhood and immediately pulled me over once I had gotten out of the neighborhood. They knew my name, they got me out of the car, handcuffed me, arrested me and took me to jail."

To avoid jail time, Davis pled guilty to 34 counts of trespassing and hosting events without a permit in September. In exchange, he received one year of unsupervised probation, an $1,148 fine and agreed that neither he nor AZ Hugs would enter or host events in Tempe parks.

"The city forced us into this plea deal because to have a chance to win at trial, we would have had to appeal two levels up," Davis said.

Davis' second arrest was a probation violation for entering one of the city's parks, which he said he did accidentally. While other groups and members of the Tempe community have taken up the task of supplementing the group's distributions, they too have received citations.

"The plea agreement that Davis signed specifically stipulates that Davis shall not enter, stay or host events at any City of Tempe park or preserve," said Kris Baxter-Ging, communication and marketing office director for the City of Tempe.

Distributing food to the homeless community without a permit is being enforced as a crime in the City of Tempe under the City Code 5-2. Sleeping, cooking or storing property on public land are also illegal under City Codes 23-90 and 23-91. According to Davis, these are societal flaws as a result of a war on the unhoused.

"What they have been doing to me and my team is what they do to those experiencing homelessness every single day," he said. "Folks on the street are targeted, they are harassed, they are jailed for simply existing. … A lot of folks are being arrested and having to go to jail and see a judge for sleeping at a bus stop with a blanket or being in the grass with a backpack."

While no such statistics exist for Tempe specifically, around 37% of all people arrested in Phoenix are homeless.

READ MORE: Violence in vigilance: An investigation into the Phoenix Police Department

Davis said a disproportionate amount of those with him when he was in jail were homeless, most of whom were there for trespassing violations. "Criminalizing homelessness is not an effective way to get people out of their complicated situations," he said. "It's just a really inhumane way to deal with people who need a little help."




'Access to food is a basic human right'

"Sharing food is not a crime, and access to food is a basic human right that the people of Tempe agree needs to be protected," Davis said. "Since AZ Hugs and myself cannot be operational in Tempe, groups like the New Deal Meal service and neighbors all around Tempe coming together to organize is a really beautiful thing to see."

"I can't see why [ASU] would want to not help something that is helping the students," Holmes said about Pitchfork Pantry. "Nobody knows about these issues, and we have to be very careful and walk on eggshells around it because if we cause too many problems, we can be shut down."

Kintscher thinks the University needs to reevaluate their relationship with Pitchfork Pantry. "The similar pantry at the University of Arizona is directly funded by the University, similarly with NAU," they said. "So it's interesting that ASU is the one school that does not directly fund this as a service to their students."

"I would say the greatest ASU support that we would love to see at the moment is just better communication between how the Pantry and ASU can collaborate and fit into each other's ideals for the future," Noel said. "Without that communication, and without a potential to collaborate and compromise and to grow, we find ourselves at an impasse."

Both Davis and Noel stressed the importance of community in the work they do. "Sunday for a lot of people seemed symbolic of family," Davis said of AZ Hugs' Sunday family picnics. "So from that we realized the best service that we can provide in this current moment to those around us is a safe space where we create family for each other."

"Food is a major driver and a major representation of individual identity, and that's why it becomes so important and so significant from small, daily levels to global conflicts," Noel said. 

"Food is used as a measure of protest, food is used as a measure of war — from food shortages to food aid — and a smaller organization like ours, we use food as a measure of community engagement and community support. It's a way for us to support the people around us, and not only better an individual's life, but to improve the overall health of our community."

Edited by Savannah Dagupion, Leah Mesquita and Audrey Eagerton. 

This story is part of The Contrast Issue, which was released on March 26, 2025. See the entire publication here.


Reach the reporter at evansilverbergrep@gmail.com and follow @evansotherstuff on Instagram.

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