Recreation

December 26, 2018

How UW Recreation celebrates movement: Combating food insecurity on campus

By: Sabrina Ebengho

The Pac-12 Recreation Departments are competing for a cause. To go beyond recreational activities and athletic contests between universities, this year’s Pac-12 Recreation Movement focused on addressing a meaningful cause, hunger on campus.

Food insecurity, defined as “an economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” by the U.S Department of Agriculture, presents a serious problem in today’s college students.

In order to raise awareness on the issue and help reduce hunger on campus, University of Washington Recreation fully committed to and participated in the Pac-12 Recreation Movement Nov. 10-16, 2018.

The Pac-12 is a collegiate athletic conference that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. One of their impactful initiatives, Pac-12 Recreation Movement, aims to develop and strengthen individual and community wellbeing throughout the week-long celebration of movement.

The Recreation Movement aimed to reach a goal of 1.5 million minutes logged of physical activity. After the week of movement, these minutes became meals through a generous contribution to the UW Food Pantry.

Starkist sponsored this year’s movement by donating pallets of individually wrapped tuna for distribution at each of the Pac 12 universities to give to Movement participants [CQ5].

To continuously fight food insecurity on campus after the celebration of movement week, UW Recreation is collectively engaged in leading efforts to combat food insecurity in our students.

“Remaining individually packaged items from Starkist were donated to the UW Food Pantry for distribution to those in need on campus,” said UW Recreation Marketing and Communication Manager Lindsay Church.

Henceforth, UW Recreation has also organized an annual food drive to benefit the University District Food Bank and other community partners.

The UW Recreation’s goal and hope is to remain committed to reducing food insecurity on campus, and promote community engagement through recreational activities and education.