Suzanne Williams grew up in Nova Scotia, among the hardworking people of Canada’s east coast. That’s where she learned the importance of creating a thriving community.

“Where I grew up, everybody took care of everybody,” Williams says. “It doesn’t have to be any great initiative; it’s just, if I have a little extra, I’ll give it to you, and if you have a little extra, you’ll give to others.”

Once Williams’ kids were old enough, she started taking them with her to work volunteer shifts at food banks and other charitable organizations, to instill the same community-service ideals within them.

“I wanted them to understand that having enough to eat isn’t a given for everybody,” she says. 

Williams earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at NC State in the ’90s. When she returned to the university more than 20 years later to join the faculty, she learned of a study conducted in 2017 by Mary Haskett, now a professor emeritus of psychology at NC State, and the university’s Food and Housing Insecurity Steering Committee. The study found that 15% of NC State students had experienced food insecurity in the prior 30 days.

‘This Is Happening Right Here’

“When I saw that study, I was like, ‘Wow, OK, I’m not going to volunteer somewhere else in town,’” Williams says. “’I’m gonna volunteer on campus, because this is happening right here in my Wolfpack community.’”

That’s how Williams became a regular volunteer at Feed the Pack, NC State’s student-led food pantry. Feed the Pack, which is funded entirely by donations, provides food, toiletries and other grocery items free of charge to all NC State students, faculty and staff. The food pantry is part of Pack Essentials, an umbrella organization within the Division of Academic and Student Affairs that houses a number of programs designed to meet essential needs such as food and housing. 

Williams, who is now a faculty member in NC State’s Department of Health and Exercise Studies, pulls monthly volunteer shifts at Feed the Pack. The food pantry is located in the Pack Essentials Hub, a bright, airy space on the ground floor of North Hall at 2200 Hillsborough St. The work she does there includes a variety of duties, such as prepping fresh produce, stocking shelves, cleaning the pantry, unloading donation trucks and repackaging bulk foods into retail-size containers. 

Meeting a Growing Need

When describing her work at the pantry, Williams makes it a point to emphasize how organized and efficient the operation and its student leaders are, and how many people they’re able to help. 

For example, Feed the Pack’s most recent annual report says the pantry distributed 218,063 pounds of food across 14,239 visits to the pantry in 2023-24, marking a 34% increase in visits over the prior year. 

That increase in visits means that despite Feed the Pack’s rapid growth, the problem of student food insecurity has only worsened since Haskett’s 2017 study. Haskett and her team have conducted two more waves of that study, and the most recent wave, conducted in 2023, found that the percentage of NC State students who had experienced food insecurity in the prior 30 days had doubled to 30%. 

“Thirty percent is a big number,” Williams says. “These are alarming statistics to me. But I feel like we have the capacity to meet this challenge. There are lots of ways to help. Even if I might not be able to contribute financially, I can organize my time so I can come in to the pantry and work a shift.” 

Stevie Kimmet, director of Pack Essentials, echoes Williams’ point about there being multiple ways to support Feed the Pack.

“If you’re interested in supporting us, no matter who you are or what you can do, there’s a way for you to get plugged in,” Kimmet says. “If you want to give the gift of time by volunteering, we love it. If you want to give the gift of a physical donation of food or other pantry items, we love it. If you want to give the gift of a monetary donation, we love it. And if you have none of that capacity, and you have five seconds to reshare a story from the Feed The Pack Instagram account to help promote our work, we love that too.”

Kimmet is particularly interested in having volunteers sign up for the summer months, when people tend to leave campus. 

“There’s a precipitous decline in volunteers over the summer because people leave the area,” she says. “Students are doing summer internships or study abroad; faculty are going away for research. That means we have to pay for more staffing, which is money we could be spending on food instead.” 

NC State employees can use their community service leave benefit to volunteer at Feed the Pack.

Good Vibes Aplenty

Kimmet says volunteering at Feed the Pack is a lot of fun, but it’s more than that, too. 

“It feeds people’s souls,” she says. “Sometimes I literally have a hard time getting people to go home at the end of their shift. As our students like to say, the vibes are good, you know? It’s a beautiful community space that people want to be a part of.”

If you’re interested in volunteering at Feed the Pack during summer 2025, whether for a one-time commitment or a recurring shift, fill out this interest form.

For employees who are interested in going above and beyond by making a tax-deductible monetary donation to Feed the Pack, right now is the perfect time to do so, because March is Faculty and Staff Giving Month. All gifts made during March 1-26 will also count toward Day of Giving, a competitive fundraising event that will take place on March 26. Campus units receive cash bonuses based on the total dollar amount and number of gifts they receive for Day of Giving, so gifts made now will have a greater impact than at any other time of year.  

Information on all the different ways you can support Feed the Pack can be found on the Pack Essentials website.

For Williams, no matter how someone pitches in to help, strengthening the community is what matters most.

“NC State is a big place, but we can still take care of each other,” she says. “That’s what a thriving community does. That’s the bottom line.”