College is expensive, it’s true. With the cost of tuition rising each year, many students are trying to save money any way they can. Here are a few ways to save money and find healthy food around campus.
FARMERS MARKETS
The University of Arizona Main Campus Farmers’ Market is held on the UA Mall from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays. The farmers’ market has live music and fresh food and, although it is not very cheap, it is a healthier option than most places in the Student Union Memorial Center.
STUDENT DISCOUNTS
Another way to save money on food is through the use of student discounts. One grocery store near campus has discounts every week. Deborah Boscoe, an employee at Albertsons on Campbell Avenue and East Glenn Street, said students can “come by every Saturday, show a CatCard, and get 10 percent off.”
The store is a little over two miles away or about ten minutes by car.
“We have a lot of students and we have a lot of fun,” Boscoe said.
UA CAMPUS PANTRY
The UA Campus Pantry is an organization on campus that helps students who may not be able to afford food. C. Michelle Sun, executive director of UA Campus Pantry, described it as “a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting food insecurity in the Wildcat community.”
Sun defined food insecurity as the inability to acquire food and said it can be short-term or long-term.
UA Campus Pantry was founded spring of 2012 and had its first food distribution in February 2013. Sun has worked with them for about four years, since the beginning.
She said a normal distribution averages “about 50 people per event, but it varies a lot. Sometimes we have upwards of 100 people.”
Last year, UA Campus Pantry was located in El Portal, but this year it has been moved to Babcock Residence Hall. Sun said Babcock is a more permanent location and the organization could store the food in the same place where the distributions are held. She mentioned that the number of students attending has dropped slightly since the move because of the distance.
Sun emphasized the confidentiality of UA Campus Pantry.
“We are an anonymous service on campus,” Sun said. “We don’t take any information down and there is no criteria to use our services, just a CatCard.”
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