39.5 percent of high schoolers at City High are approved for free and reduced lunches, according to the Iowa City School District Enrollment Report. Some of these students’ only meals are at school, and others spend the weekends going hungry. For this reason, City’s student senate is starting a food pantry which opened on Friday, March 8.

Former student body president Lucy Wagner ‘17 had previously won a grant from the Hoover Foundation for community service projects for City. Using this $250 grant, student senate has been able to purchase food from Costco to create weekend packs and snack packs for the pantry; however, they still have around $120 left to continue to make packs. Student Senate has further been fundraising for the pantry through their own activities. On March 6, Student Senate fundraised through Powderpuff Volleyball, earning money from each participating team.

Student Body Vice President Naomi Meurice ‘19 was the pioneer behind the idea.

“It’s proven to be much more difficult than I expected it to be,” Meurice said. “There’s finding a place to store the packs, there’s distribution, and you have to have a way to give students food without making them feel singled out.”

On March 6 during advisory, around a dozen student senators made approximately 90 snack packs and 40 weekend packs.

“I just noticed that there are a lot of students at City that take advantage of the free and reduced lunches, which means there are students that need food, especially over the weekends,” Meurice said.