Students browse the shelves at Cougar Cupboard, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in Houston, Texas. | Raphael Fernandez/ The Cougar.
He broke down when he heard the news.
“The poor boy hadn’t eaten hardly anything in two weeks, and someone told him about the pantry,” said College of Education Student Success Coordinator Laura Lee. “He emailed me and I told him, ‘Yes, definitely come get some food and everything,’ and he just cried. He was so happy.”
The idea of a campus food pantry started as most ideas do: a dream. After reading about similar initiatives at other universities, Lee helped establish Cougar Cupboard 2, then called the Personal Early Education Support Pantry.
“Everybody believed in it and supported it once it got started,” Lee said. “I think it takes everyone together, no matter whether you’re the custodian or whether you’re like me, student success, or faculty to help students. It matters.”
In the 2023-2024 Student Basic Needs Survey Report by the Temple University Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, which surveyed 74,350 students in 91 institutions across 16 states, around 41% of participants reported experiencing food insecurity.
Cougar Cupboard 2 aims to be part of the solution, along with the newer Cougar Cupboard.
“Food is just one of those things that people feel like they should have access to all the time, and they just don’t,” said Program Manager II for the Cougar Cupboard, Genesis Rivas-Ponce. “That contributes to the stigma, like if I’m not able to afford this basic thing, what can I do? It’s just so hard to admit that I’m hungry and I don’t know where my next meal is coming from.”
The Cougar Cupboard, created in partnership with the Houston Food Bank as part of their Food for Change market network, is free for current UH students enrolled in at least one class. Students can receive up to 30 pounds of food every week.
“People think that the Cupboard is just for people in need, but it’s for everybody,” Rivas-Ponce said. “Right now, everything is so expensive. If you just need a bag of rice, a thing of water, a sandwich, you could just pick it up and not have to pay for it.”
After completing a sign-up form and the Houston Food Bank questionnaire, students receive an FSH ID.
The Cougar Cupboard, located at 4200 Martin Luther King Blvd., Room R101, is open Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the first Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“My very first visit, I think I was a little anxious,” said social work graduate student Amara Thomas. “I was just nervous about what the setup was going to be like and what people would think. But honestly, I haven’t felt judged. It feels just like normal grocery shopping.”
This, according to the Center for Student Advocacy and Community Associate Director Beau Trent-Pierce, is by design. Inside the Cupboard, jaunty music plays, friends chat at the game table and laughter bounces off the walls.
“It’s a hard job and it’s labor, but part of it is having fun and making sure our guests are having fun and having a good time,” Trent-Pierce said. “Part of removing that stigma and the barriers, making sure it’s an accessible place, is welcoming folks.”
The Cupboard is not an in-and-out transaction where students receive pre-packed bags of food. There’s a sense of autonomy in the shopping experience. It makes, in Trent-Pierce’s words, a “world of difference.”
“Being truly focused on providing essential needs is amazing because that’s one of my passions, and education is a great passion of mine as well, so being able to mend those two is amazing,” Trent-Pierce said. “This is my first fall here at U of H, so it’s all just kind of fresh. I love my job. I love being able to support the students in the way that I do.”
In the last school year, the Cougar Cupboard received just under 20,000 visits and distributed more than 250,000 pounds of food. For health senior Ashley Nguyen, who grew up on food stamps, choosing to intern at the Cougar Cupboard came down to one simple philosophy: the desire to help.
“It just makes me kind of happy because we’re helping people get the food that they need,” Nguyen said. “It just makes me kind of proud.”
The Cupboard is always looking for work-study students and volunteers, especially with some days seeing over 400 student visits. The work is challenging but rewarding, CSAC Director Michael Crook emphasizes that many of the people on his team were once in the same shoes as the students using the Cougar Cupboard now.
“I was one bag of groceries away from dropping out of school,” Crook said. “I was working two jobs. I was involved as a student leader. My car had got broken into, and then I ended up getting a flat tire, so I couldn’t drive it. I just couldn’t even afford food.”
Crook, a junior at the time, said he shared the details of his situation with just two people — to this day, he doesn’t know who, but somebody dropped off two bags of groceries at his front door. Crook not only stayed in school and graduated, but went on to earn a master’s degree.
“Food makes a difference and had an impact on me,” Crook said. “We don’t want anybody to feel bad about being hungry, and we want them to know that they can come in. There is support. The university supports them. We have a staff that deeply cares about people and their success and well-being.”
This year, the Cupboard is working on increasing its supply of international foods and is partnering with the American Heart Association to be a heart-healthy pantry.
CSAC will also offer resource coaching so students can get one-on-one help with goal-setting.
“I have no less expectations for students because they’re experiencing food insecurity,” Crook said. “They might have some additional challenges, but my expectations for you to succeed are never going to be lower because I know that you can do it.”
No single grocery trip is going to dismantle the systemic obstacles that face students trying to get enough to eat. Yet, students who use the Cougar Cupboard have higher retention rates compared to those who don’t, particularly low-income students.
“When you work closely with food insecurity and people who don’t know where their next meal is going to come from, or they’re having to pick and choose between eating and where they’re going to live, you can’t help but be moved and changed,” Crook said. “Remember and keep in mind that we are all connected and a rising tide raises all ships. Everyone will do better if we consider one another.”
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