Racers across campus have consistently stepped up to volunteer and help people around the community.

Now, a new opportunity has students helping one another.

Racers Helping Racers is a food drive for students who do not have enough to eat and may need assistance from their fellow classmates. The new food pantry is student-run and hopes to help those on Murray State’s campus.

The food drive began Wednesday, and will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Blackburn Science Building in room 244.

The food drive to help Racers was an idea Re’Nita Avery-Meriwether, the director of Student Life and the Curris Center, heard at a conference and brought to Murray State to help those students who may not otherwise be able to afford the food.

“It came from a conference I went to about two years ago,” Avery-Meriwether said. “It was a national conference for student affairs professionals and they had a session on food pantries that they had at other universities around the country.”

While the food drive has only been active for a few days, Avery-Meriwether said the collections will help determine how many students are in need and give her team an idea of the number of students who can use the help of the food drive.

Racers Helping Racers will accept non-perishable items for collection, including soup, crackers, granola, rice, canned fruit, canned juice, canned vegetables, pasta and condiments. Donations are accepted all year.

The drive is also affiliated with the local food bank, Need Line, and Avery-Meriwether said the drive has no end date.

“It’s ongoing,” she said. “People can donate the food to Need Line because it’s a partnership. Since it’s always ongoing, we always will need food to stock up the pantry.”

All donations will need to go through the Murray-Calloway County Need Line, which is located downtown.

Caren Reason, junior from Benton, Ky., said she believes Racers Helping Racers can help motivate students to volunteer because the program is centered on fellow students in need of assistance.

She believes the program can bring attention to those students and staff who might not think about the problems students face with not having enough food. She said she is lucky to not have that problem, and she is proud of Murray State for reaching out to those who do.

“Some people don’t really think about it,” Reason said. “They have an unlimited meal plan and have boxes and boxes of food that they can eat out of in their dorm room.”

She said the food pantry sheds a light on the fact that there are people who don’t have enough food to eat and people who cannot afford to eat three meals a day.

“Some students are barely affording college as it is,” Reason said.

Reason, who is a youth and nonprofit leadership major, said she believes students having a lack of food is a topic not often discussed, whereas it isn’t surprising for someone who has seen such struggles within a community.

“There are always needs in places where you would find none,” she said. “But it’s something that is not talked about, really.”

Reason said while she does not know how much of a need Murray State has for the food pantry, there are opportunities to help everyone through a program like Racers Helping Racers.

Said Reason: “Racers Helping Racers is definitely something that we can all help with for those few that do have that need.”

Story by Mary Bradley, Staff writer