The bank holds food distribution dates every other Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Olin Health Center cafeteria. 

All MSU students enrolled in courses in fall and spring semesters who do not have an MSU dining plan are eligible to receive free food. Students must have their MSU student ID at each distribution.

Nicole Edmonds, director of the food bank, said it is meant to act as a supplement for students who don’t have access to regular meals. 

“Our philosophy is that college is expensive and if we can take away some of the burden of stress and some of the financial burden, then anybody is eligible,” Edmonds said. 

According to her, the food bank tries to give away meals with nutritionally-balanced selections. 

“We usually have the same staple foods, that being your canned fruits and vegetables and soup and pasta and rice and cereal and those kinds of things,” Edmonds said. “We give away MSU Dairy Store cheese, fresh bakery bread and a wide variety of fresh produce.”

The bank is assisted by the Greater Lansing Food Bank, allowing food to be purchased at a lower cost. Volunteers are needed at the distributions to package the food and help clients. 

“Those volunteer groups tend to just be other student organizations — sometimes sororities or fraternities, but the vast majority of those groups are different student organizations or groups on campus,” Edmonds said. “We also take anywhere from 15 to 20 walk-in volunteers or individual volunteers.”

Dietetics junior Holly Pelton, a volunteer at the food bank since January 2017, talked about working with clients there. 

“I love being a volunteer because it was fun to package up the foods,” Pelton said. “It’s basically like a little shopping experience, you get to help out people, get their food for them.”

Pelton’s duty is to pick up the food, explain options to clients and ask them what they want to eat. At the end, she cleans up and organizes all food.

“I really love it because it’s not like being a worker, it’s not very demanding,” Pelton said. “(It’s) not too stressful of a job and you get to interact with people on campus ... I love to know what their day is like and stuff like that.”

The bank serves more than 4,000 students and distributes more than 35,000 pounds of food in the course of one year, according to its website. 

“I think it’s a great opportunity for students because as college student, it’s so hard to get food on a budget without working so hard or working and paying for the food,” Pelton said. “It’s a good opportunity to get a break from paying for everything and get some good food to survive college with, which is nice.”

The only issue is getting more students in to visit the food bank, according to civil engineering doctoral student Aksel Seitllari. He lives on campus and has been going to the food bank for a year.

“It’s an amazing initiative that MSU does for helping students,” Seitllari said. “I wish I knew earlier about this place and I’d like other students to learn about this. Maybe some marketing or some advertisement should be done about this initiative.”