Keshawn Allen
With over twelve thousand students enrolled at the University of West Georgia, 21% live on campus in one of the residential halls. This is because the university is in charge of providing students with housing and food.
Housing is not typically an issue regarding on-campus living since the housing department here at the University of West Georgia works hard to ensure that each resident has a room with working appliances and furniture.
Given that everyone needs to eat at some time of the day, relying on swipes and business hours for the dining hall doesn’t always work for every student attending UWG. To ensure that every student has a chance to get food at any time of the day, the university has provided a service called “Wolves Don’t Waste” that helps take care of the issues relating to food here at UWG.
Wolves Don’t Waste is a student-led organization that works alongside Dine West here at UWG to provide food for anyone and everyone who attends the university. They accomplish this goal by taking some of the food from the dining halls that were never served or touched by anyone and packaging it in take-out containers for students to pick up and eat. Students can find these containers in one of the Wolves Don’t Waste refrigerators.
The best part of this is that students do not have to have a meal plan to be able to use it, and it is not just reserved for students. Professors and faculty staff working around campus can pick up a try if they need food throughout the day. Other universities across the state of Georgia have similar programs, such as the Wolves Don’t Waste organization here at UWG. Still, the thing that makes the program here is the accessibility for anyone who needs food.
“We added a fridge in the Coliseum for those who have classes in there,” said Emmanuel Orusa, the organization’s president.
Wolves Don’t Waste is introducing things current and new students can look forward to when it comes to the 2024-2025 school year if they are interested in joining the club.
“Next semester, to help students feel more involved, we will start memberships that’ll last the entire time they are here at UWG,” said Orusa. “They’ll be able to vote on who they want in the E-Board positions. They’ll also get exclusive shirts, amongst other things. The plan next semester is to strike a plan with Dine West that’ll allow us to recover to both Chick-Fil-A and La Luna.”
Not only does Wolves Don’t Waste provide for students by offering them food they can access at any time of day, but they also allow students to build their resumes and help other on-campus organizations. How the club gets the food from on-campus dining halls such as East and West Commons requires participants to go into the kitchen and package the food into to-go containers. This allows other organizations and students to gain volunteer hours to boost their community service hours. Many hours can be gained from either joining or volunteering for this organization, from packaging the food, bringing it to the fridges and helping out with the events they put on feeding people experiencing homelessness.
The refrigerators that store the Wolves Don’t Waste food containers can be located in the Campus Center and The Colosseum and operate during building hours. The refrigerators get restocked every Tuesday and Thursday night with fresh food to be taken by anyone. If anyone would like to volunteer or become a part of the executive board for this club, you can contact the current president via the organization’s Instagram @wdw_westgeorgia.