Organizations such as Grove Grocery and RebelTHON originated with the intent to give back to the Oxford community. Since then, they have become fixtures of the University of Mississippi, but they also have evolved into communities for the student body.
Established in 2013, Grove Grocery emerged from the Division of Student Affairs when the previous Associate Vice Chancellor Leslie Banhan was interested in setting up a pantry for people on campus who needed food.
Operated by a student committee with the help of student volunteers in Kinard Hall, Grove Grocery seeks to end campus hunger and alleviate poverty by discreetly providing nutritious food products and hygiene products free of charge to students and employees of Ole Miss.
Grove Grocery also had outside foundational support, according to Kate Forster, the director of advocacy at UMatter Student Support and Advocacy Office and staff advisor for Grove Grocery.
“We had support from campus dining and from Aramark,” Forster said. “And we had a strong group of students and some faculty that supported just the birth of this pantry on our campus at that time.”
Aramark is a company that provides food service on the UM campus.
For the first several years of Grove Grocery, the organization was somewhat underutilized, because many people still were unaware of its existence. However, once the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, there was a massive shift that caused many on campus to face financial and food challenges. As demand increased, so did awareness of this resource..
Since its start, Grove Grocery has pushed for the same goal: to be a resource for those in need and to educate people on food insecurity. The student director of Grove Grocery, senior biochemistry major Andie Udziela, explains that food insecurity is a real, current situation on college campuses and wants to continue to spread awareness of the issue.
“The overall mission is to show how food insecurity perpetuates in the classroom,” Udziela said. “Everyone romanticizes the idea of being ‘a broke college student.’ It’s kind of typical that we’ve made it into being a norm, but that norm doesn’t mean that people should not have access to nutritious food.”
February on campus is now synonymous with the annual RebelTHON event. Founded in 2011, the organization has grown to be a powerhouse fundraiser that supports Children’s of Mississippi, the only children’s hospital in the state.
RebelTHON originated from the Children’s Miracle Network, a nationwide organization that works with different educational institutions to have dance marathon fundraisers. Due to the organization’s zoning policies that determined where fund-raised donations would go, the money raised would solely go to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis. UM students wanted to give to a hospital in their home state that needed support, too.
Students in RebelTHON leadership roles successfully petitioned the Children’s Miracle Network in 2013 to change where funds could be donated. RebelTHON has donated to Children’s of Mississippi ever since.
Rebelthon has gone through tremendous growth. In 2013 on its Instagram, the organization posted that $4,910 had been raised with 255 participants. At the most recent RebelTHON, the organization raised an astounding $211,530.23.
Senior exercise science major and RebelTHON President Ashley Myers explained that the organization is flourishing.
“We grow a little bit every year,” Myers said. “In 2021, we had the most participants we’ve ever had, which is a little over 1,300. Our current leadership team is already over 170 people, and that grows whenever we get new teams.”
Children’s of Mississippi can do whatever they like with funds raised, so RebelTHON was able to fund many improvements to the hospital. This includes neonatal equipment for ambulances and a new part of the hospital named “Sanderson Tower,” $1 million-plus renovation that increased the size of the hospital.
Myers hopes these achievements continue with the help of RebelTHON.
“We get to tour the hospital once or twice every year (as our leadership team), and it’s always really special because I feel like every time we go there’s a little something new. I think that a big goal of that is to never see that stop,” Myers said.
