Ben Walworth, Data and Operations Coordinator at the Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry (the University of Arkansas on-campus food pantry)

Author: Benjamin Walworth | Major: Marketing

My name is Ben Walworth, and I am a sophomore in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, majoring in marketing and minoring in nonprofit studies and communication. I was part of an Honors College Research Team during fall 2021, led by Dr. Louise Hancox and Dr. Jennie Popp, that examined food insecurity in Arkansas, specifically focusing on the University of Arkansas campus. This research will help drive policy recommendations for campus leadership and aid the Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry with development efforts.

This past fall, I was one of six students that were nominated by university faculty to participate in the first Honors Arkansas statewide service-learning course. Through this course, we examined the causes, misperceptions, and the wide-ranging effects of food insecurity. We also learned how businesses, nonprofits, and the government are working to decrease the prevalence of food insecurity. This all occurred through virtual weekly sessions with students from eight other universities and colleges across Arkansas and numerous guest speakers and lecturers.

The first project we worked on in this course was mapping produce availability across Northwest Arkansas, specifically focusing on the following counties: Washington, Madison, Benton, and Carroll. My specific task focused on calling stores that were located around 10 miles outside of these county lines and recording their hours, location, and the produce availability. Then, all this information was compiled and shared with the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, with the goal of helping them visualize food deserts—focusing on produce availability—so they can serve individuals in the affected area through their mobile pantry program.

The second and main project we worked on was conducting a campus survey that assessed the measure of food insecurity on the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus, and to examine which groups were disproportionately affected, in order to drive policy recommendations. The basis of the survey was drawn from a similar study that was conducted on our campus in 2016. This project was very collaborative with my peers and our faculty mentors. We all worked together to develop the survey, obtain prizes to incentivize survey completion, and to analyze the data collected. The data from our campus survey will also be compiled with the data from the other eight participating institutions to provide a glimpse of food insecurity on college campuses across the state of Arkansas.

As the current data and operations coordinator for the Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry here on campus, I especially appreciated this opportunity. I was able to lend this unique perspective to my peers, while also gaining a better understanding of how we as a pantry can continue providing hunger alleviation services, while also working to lessen the prevalence of food insecurity on our campus. I have gained incredible amounts of knowledge and insight from our various guest presenters and also had the opportunity to network with professionals in the realm of corporate social responsibility and hunger alleviation services.

I am excited to travel to the 2022 Gulf-South Summit on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Through Higher Education in March to co-present a poster summarizing our survey findings. The poster will focus on survey development, marketing/outreach, survey administration, results and analysis, and our conclusions. We will also be discussing how we have worked, and are currently working, with the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance to advocate for policy changes at the state legislature, as well as for on-campus policy changes at the University of Arkansas.

Furthermore, I am looking forward to also attending and presenting at a conference in April put on by the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance regarding our research as well as our on-campus food pantry.

I highly enjoyed this Honors College Research course and the opportunity to work with a team of dedicated and passionate peers. Throughout this past semester, we were challenged to think critically and truly dive deep to gain a more holistic understanding of the complex causes and consequences of food insecurity.