On Jan. 23, members of Dartmouth Student Government met with Dartmouth Dining to discuss the relocation of the campus food pantry — a pantry containing refrigerated foods and non-perishables — from the basement of Dick’s House to Kellogg Hall, located on the ground floor of the Geisel School of Medicine. The pantry was relocated in December following a “fire code issue” of which the College was notified in September, according to School House senator and Dining Advisory Committee member JJ Dega ’26.
According to Dartmouth Dining director Jon Plodzik, the food pantry, also called the food shelf, was previously located in a fire egress stairwell — a staircase used in the event of a fire or other emergency.
Clinical service coordinator Dominique Walton launched the food shelf in 2018 after hearing from a graduate student experiencing food insecurity. For two years, the shelf was stocked largely through staff donations. Since the fall of 2020, when former DSG president David Millman “restarted” the pantry, DSG has donated $10,000 worth of goods, according to DSG’s website.
According to Dega, Dartmouth Dining took over funding for the food pantry during the 2023-24 academic year as part of its food insecurity task force. The task force was established under former Dean of the College Scott Brown and brought together campus leaders to address issues of food insecurity.
The pantry is intended to serve all students on campus, not just those facing food insecurity, Dega said. He added that the pantry ultimately aims to make dining on campus more “inclusive and accessible.”
“The food pantry, in my personal opinion, is not just for students who are facing food insecurity … but for anyone who wants to utilize the resource,” Dega said.
Some students claimed that there was poor advertisement of the relocation from the College to campus. Lily Easter ’25 said she found out about the move after overhearing a conversation between two assistant directors of residential education.
“I overheard a conversation … and then I joined in because they were saying that [the pantry] was moved,” Easter said. “Nobody had known that it had been moved.”
First-Generation Office student director Alejandra Carrasco Alayo ’25, who has advertised the pantry to First-Year Summer Enrichment Program students, said it was “terrible” to move the food pantry location. She said she felt like the College “did not advertise it.”
“I had no idea about it,” Carrasco Alayo said.
Harmony Wilson ’28 said she was unable to find Kellogg Hall when she needed ingredients.
“I wanted to [go to the pantry], but I didn’t know where it was located,” Wilson said. “… When I was told where, I didn’t know where [Kellogg Hall] was, so I ended up not being able to go.”
Easter also said the pantry’s relocation has decreased its accessibility. While Dick’s House was a “far away” location from most undergraduate residence halls, it “made sense” because students were familiar with the location, she explained.
“I had never been in [Geisel] really,” Easter said. “We had to follow Google Maps and trek through the snow, so it’s definitely less accessible than it was.”
Carrasco Alayo suggested that the pantry be moved somewhere closer to the center of campus, such as House Center B or the basement of Baker-Berry Library.
“Just make [the pantry] more centralized to where students are in need,” Carrasco Alayo said. “[They] might be running to get whatever they need to get.”
Easter echoed these sentiments, noting that a more central location would benefit students during the cold winter months.
According to Plodzik, Dartmouth Dining initially planned to relocate the pantry to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps meeting room in Leverone Field House. However, Kellogg Hall was ultimately chosen due to concerns regarding “accessibility and renovation needs” with the ROTC meeting room, he wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth.
“We wanted to maintain the pantry in proximity to its previous location and provide 24-hour, year-round access,” Plodzik added.
Easter noted that the pantry is a helpful resource for students who cook and are in need of ingredients. According to Easter, the Co-Op Food Store in Hanover can be “expensive,” so the food pantry can be an alternative resource for ingredients.
“On campus, cooking is not necessarily something that’s easy to do,” she said. “The food pantry offers a good source of [ingredients] where [students] don’t have to worry about being able to afford ingredients for things that they want to cook.”
Easter said that on her first visit to the pantry, she was “surprised” to see it was “well-stocked,” with more than canned goods.
“There was a fridge section, a freezer section, dry goods and produce as well,” Easter said. “So I thought that that was really cool — that they have such a wide selection.”
Dega said DSG and Dartmouth Dining are working to “ensure” that the relocation is communicated to the student body. According to Plodzik, the pantry is refreshed daily by both a dining manager and student worker. The food pantry is accessible 24 hours a day and seven days a week with a Dartmouth ID.
