With food insecurity a big issue on community college campuses across the state, Odessa College has cooked up a unique plan called Wrangler Bucks Campus Dining.
The Odessa College Board of Trustees approved a request for $400,000 to start the program next fall. The benefit will be available to full-time students throughout the OC service area.
Vice President for Student Services Kim McKay said they figured out there were about 2,000 full-time students each semester. Each one will get $100 per semester.
During the first week of class, students will be given a partial deposit in their declining balance fund and the remaining balance will be issued on census date. That is typically about a week after class starts and when OC takes its official attendance or enrollment. Students who aren’t attending won’t be included.
“Students who don’t use their balance at the end of December and at the end of May, it’ll be rolled back into the campus dining dollar fund and rolled into the next semester so that we can continue to support students and sustain the initiative,” McKay said.
In 2018, a survey from the Trellis Foundation was conducted to assess financial wellness on campus. At the time, food insecurity was at 18% and that was a lot at the time and it was felt there should be a response to that data, she added.
“Our response was the food pantry and it has served thousands of students and families. We administered the survey again in 2020. We knew we’d probably see a change in both financial wellness, basic needs and food insecurity. We saw a an 8% increase, so we went from 21% to 29%. We administered this survey again in 2023 knowing that we recovered from the pandemic, but we’re still dealing with some economic hardships in our community, in the state and in the nation. Nothing led us to believe that we would see food insecurity jump to 45%. We can’t have that data and not respond to it, especially when it impacts our students and their ability to learn, their ability to complete a degree that unlocks opportunities for upward mobility and to change generational poverty situations. That’s our response is the Wrangler Bucks Campus Dining Dollars. It’s been a campus wide effort and we’ve been very grateful for our food service provider who is really supportive to join us in addressing food insecurity within parameters that they have and within the limits that we have with the same things that we talked about, storage, serving facilities, staffing, all of those things they’re willing to reimagine in order for us to address food insecurity on our campus,” McKay said.
Students have a digital ID card, which includes technology to load balances and load meal plans for student residents.
“We will load the balance on their digital ID card and that’s what students will use to access campus dining services,” McKay said.
If they don’t have a smartphone or have left their phone at home for the day, she said they will work through some of those contingency plans. They can issue a physical ID card, but it doesn’t have the magstripe associated with financial transactions so students could type in their ID number.
“There may be some other options and opportunities for us to do for students who may not have a smartphone or who may have left it at home for the day,” McKay said.
All full-time students will get the benefit regardless of how they take their courses.
“We know students are online, students are taking classes on campus. Some students are doing a combination of both. But what we also know is that students typically have a schedule that has them here on campus taking classes using a Monday-Wednesday schedule, or a Tuesday-Thursday schedule. We anticipate for those students that are coming to campus, they’ll take advantage of this option twice a week. They could take advantage of it all week, if they’re on campus, but we anticipate that it’ll be twice a week and that’s one of the reasons that we settled on $100 to get them through 16 weeks. (It was) something that was reasonable when we’re considering a large budget ask and still was addressing the food insecurity that our students are experiencing,” McKay said.
“Of those 4,000 students that we budgeted for, what we know is that 46% of the 4,000 are completely online. That’s how they choose to learn. They’re not having to come to campus for a class. They may come to campus for learning support, student activities, instructor office hours. There may be a reason that they come to campus but they are learning online. Of those 4,000 students 68% of them are from Ector County. Those students are more likely to attend class on our campus. … Of that 68% who are from Ector County, only 9% of them are totally online. What that tells us is that if you live in Ector County, your learning choice is typically on campus, not online, which is really good news, because there are great things to offer students through the day, both curricular and non-curricular,” she added.
Early college high school and dual credit students were not included in the plan. They receive free breakfast and lunch through Ector County ISD.
If everything works out, McKay said they may expand the initiative to more students.
“I think that is what this first year will tell us; one is it doable. Do we have the capacity on campus to to serve more students than we are serving now. Then we’ll also take a look at the student success outcomes. Did they remain registered during the semester? Were they successful earning an A, B or C? Did they withdraw? Did they persist? Are they completing at a different rate than students before we implemented this particular program? All of those things will tell us, one if we’re successful, two if we need to expand the program, and three will give us the data and the platform to go out for a private ask whether that’s a foundation or a local funder that may want to support food insecurity and the initiatives that address it on our campus,” McKay said.
OC has 237 beds on campus and those students have a meal plan. Student athletes will also receive the Wrangler Bucks Campus Dining Dollars. McKay said they already get a $50 declining balance as part of their housing package.
“They’ll receive a total of $100 now that they can use on campus. That will benefit them because the dining hall’s only open a certain number of hours and certain times during the week, but the other campus dining options that we’re going to make available to students will be open extended and different hours. If there was a late practice or a late study session or they returned home late from a competition, there will be options for them to use that declining balance in a different place than the traditional meal plan and, and cafeteria food service,” she said.
Currently, food on campus is available at the cafeteria and the Wrangler Grill food items are also available through the coffee shop, Jack Rabbit Java in the Salisbury Campus Center, and the coffee shop that’s in the LRC as well as Grab and Go which is an Odessa College dining facility.
“When we made the decision to provide options for 2,000 more students per semester, we knew that we needed to increase the current venues’ capacity and add something else. We have a food service area in the Wood Math and Science Building that is not being used. That will be reimagined and become our new pizza place. Students can come in and grab a slice and a drink, or the other pre-packaged, pre-prepared items that will be served out of that location throughout the day, giving students that may never come to the north side of campus an option to use their dining dollars and address the food insecurity that we know so many of our students are experiencing,” McKay said.
“The LRC will increase their hot options for students. They’ll also have some fun convenience store items that we know students like, like Ramen, macaroni and cheese, Uncrustables; things that we know students will quickly purchase and make their way to class,” she added.
Students may also pick up food from the food pantry.
“Most cafeteria service providers have a plan for their leftover food,” McKay said. “A lot of times it goes maybe to a church or to a mission or to a fire station. Our food service provider was doing a combination of all those things with the excess food. What they’re going to do now that we have shared the food insecurity data with them and they’ve joined us on this sort of quest to address food insecurity on campus, is to take the excess food, use the safe food handling guidelines to cool, repackage and flash freeze individual servings of that food; label it with the appropriate dates and deadlines for expiration and give that to the food pantry so that if we have a student who is maybe part-time and doesn’t get the benefit of the dining dollars, or maybe a student who has used all of their $100, an opportunity to have a pre-packaged, pre-prepared, nutritious meal. There are microwaves throughout campus that students would be able to grab something from the food pantry and then microwave it so that they could eat before or after class,” she added.
McKay said this is an innovative approach to food insecurity that could be replicated elsewhere.
She added that the plan could be a draw for students to go from part-time to full-time and complete their degree sooner.
“I think that may happen. I don’t know that it would be necessarily a recruiting strategy. It will certainly be something that we share with our students and our families. But I think it will make the most difference in part-time to full-time,” McKay said.
