Have you seen the black tote bags at the bottom of the stairs, or maybe even the closet full of food?

​Just recently, the Judge Memorial community came together to establish an easily accessible food pantry serving anyone in need within our school population.

​The inspiration for it started with senior Mary Brennan, who came forward worried about the government funding cuts, especially for low-income families and individuals facing food insecurity.

According to the Utah Food Bank, one in eight Utahns, including one in six children, are food insecure. Over 415,000 Utahns face uncertainty about where their next meal will come from—a sharp increase of nearly 100,000 in just the last year.

After approaching her peer ministry class, Mary’s plan was put into full action.

​“Anyone is eligible, you don’t have to show anything,” Ms. Howa Johnson said.

​“In fact, we’ve got the food all set out so that people can just come discreetly grab a bag of food as needed, and bring the bag back and then get it refilled again. They’re just sitting out by the stairs, so anytime someone feels like they need it, it’s for students, it’s for staff, it’s for families, just it’s open for whoever is in need,” Ms. Howa Johnson said.

“We were originally going to do it with the Utah Food Bank, but then we had different people in the Judge community also wanting to do the same thing, but wanting it to be more of a local collection for our own community. We had the space, we had the storage, and we had the people who wanted to help to gather all the food. So we had parents involved. We had some teachers involved. We had students involved. We’ve gotten a ton of food now, we’ve been collecting now for the past couple of weeks.

“We will continue just as long as there is need.”