Throughout Winter and Spring Quarter, members of the Student Leadership Development Program (SLDP) have been working hard to put their learning to action. An important aspect of the certificate program, is a group project in which students must work together to help make an influential impact on the UC Davis campus.

‘The Grocery Girls,’ comprised of SLDP members, Shaye Spani, Elsie Villanueva, Sara Helms, and Alayna Gerstel, embrace the group project as a platform to help end food insecurity on campus.

The team’s goal is to create a website, called Davis Food Hub, to advertise restaurants, grocery stores, and other resources that accept EBT, Cal Fresh, or whole food savings. Along with their website, they hope the interactive design of a Facebook page will allow them to share their mission with a wider audience and encourage an open discussion between Davis community members to publicize other resources to help end food insecurity on campus and share healthy recipes on a budget.

Based on data from the 2016 UC Davis’ Undergraduate Experience Survey, 24% of Davis students finished their food before they could manage to purchase more, with 9% claiming the previous circumstances occurred often. As of 2015, 1 in 6 Yolo County locals suffered with food insecurity, as stated by The Davis Enterprise. Statistics like these, are what motivated the group to put forth their initiative.

“These statistics show that not only is this a problem faced in Yolo County and the City of Davis, but it is also a struggle here at UC Davis,” said ‘The Grocery Girls.’ “Therefore, we are focusing our efforts into building a one stop website to help everyone in the Davis community have better access to resources that already exist to combat food insecurity.”

The Davis Food Hub website and Facebook page have already started sharing helpful resources and opening up dialogue within the community. The team’s next goal is to partner with an organization on campus to continue their work and spread their message to more people.

The team attributes their success to the teachings they learned throughout their experience in SLDP.

“By recognizing the various skills sets we each have on our team, we have been able to divide the tasks that need to get done in a way that is more efficient,” said the members.

Visit the Davis Food Hub website and Facebook page to learn more or to share other resources to help end food insecurity in Davis.

Davis Food Hub website      Davis Food Hub Facebook page     

Enrollment for SLDP 2019-20 begins this summer. Follow the link below for more information on how to get involved.

SLDP