The organizers of a new food pantry on the Mizzou campus will hold their grand opening on Tuesday.

Tiger Pantry will soon serve thousands of college students needing food assistance.

The pantry is part of the Food Bank of Central and Northeast Missouri.  Mizzou Junior and Tiger Pantry Director Nick Droege got the idea for the pantry after seeing a similar pantry at the University of Arkansas.  Tiger Pantry will help Mizzou students and faculty members who are low on cash.  It’s the first pantry of its kind in Mizzou’s history.

Droege said, “I went down to Arkansas and I saw how their pantry operated.  I saw that they were serving 250 plus students, staff and faculty at the time.  I figured if U of A has the need, there has to be some similar demographics here.  I came back here and started doing some research.  It’s definitely a need here on campus.”

Tiger Pantry’s main headquarters is at 1400 Rock Quarry Road near Capen Park.  Besides providing food, Tiger Pantry staff members will also provide health and wellness education programs and volunteer opportunities for students.  The Tiger Pantry requires a Mizzou I.D.

Droege said, “It’s impossible to say what we are going to offer every single week because it fluctuates so much.  We can’t always predict what we are going to get in a food drive.  We can’t always predict what we are going to get from the food bank.  We’re kind of just taking it as it goes.”

Once you qualify and sign up, you can get food from the Tiger Pantry once a month.

The new pantry officially opens on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

After that, the pantry will be open for business on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays.