The University of Tennessee at Martin campus and community are working together again for a good cause.
The Martin Area Farmers Market is collecting donations from its vendors to go toward The Captain’s Pantry, a food supply for UT Martin students.
Caroline Ideus (pronounced “eye-DEE-us”) and Samantha Goyret (pronounced “goy-RET”), the managers of the Martin Area Farmers Market, said this is the first year for the farmers market to make donations to The Captain’s Pantry, which began in 2018.
“In the spring, I attended a virtual call with the Tennessee Justice Center about college hunger relief and college food insecurity,” Ideus said. “It is a problem here in Tennessee.
“We’re thinking about what we can do for gleaning opportunities here at the market, and this goes directly to the campus.”
Martin Area Farmers Market vendors are donating their extra food to The Captain’s Pantry after each market day. The farmers market is open from noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday and from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday. Through Aug. 14, farmers market vendors have donated 319 pounds of food.
Ideus said a representative from the UTM Office of Residence Life and Housing comes to pick up the food at the end of each market day and bring it back to the pantry.
“We’ve been working with the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences to get recipes so the students know how to cook the fresh food that’s donated,” Goyret said.
“We hope that when the classes get started, there will be more students who are excited about getting fresh produce,” Ideus said.
Donations will be given throughout the Martin Area Farmers Market season, which ends Oct. 19. Vendors put their donations in a blue cooler to be brought to The Captain’s Pantry.
The Martin Area Farmers Market can be found at 101 Main St. in historic downtown Martin. The structure for the farmers market is between the train tracks and the Lindell Street businesses.
The Captain’s Pantry – named for the UT Martin mascot, Captain Skyhawk – is open to all UTM students. Students can pick up food items free of charge at the pantry’s two locations: the Ellington Hall lobby or the Cooper Hall lobby.
Director of Housing Ryan Martin said The Captain’s Pantry serves a need for UT Martin students.
“In 2018, we applied for the Giving Circle Grant, and we won that grant to get us up and going,” he said. “That paid for our initial food supplies, the pantry and so on. Since then, we’ve been running off of donations. We’ve been able to build a pantry fund through monetary donations that have come in.
“We received $15,000 in funding from a UT Alumni fundraiser during the UT Martin football game at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Oct. 22, 2022), and that included a $5,000 matching gift from UT System President Randy Boyd. Those funds were split between the pantry and the Skyhawk Shares Meal Swipes program.”
The pantry is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, during the academic year, and is open to commuting students and non-commuters.
People wanting to make a donation to The Captain’s Pantry may bring nonperishable food items to the Ellington Hall lobby from 8 a.m. to midnight. Monetary donations may be made to the Student Affairs Gift Fund through www.give.utm.edu. Funds are used to help support purchases for the pantry.
“We hope to build more relationships with other UTM departments,” Ideus said.
PHOTO: Shown posing with the blue coolers where Martin Area Farmers Market vendors make food donations to UTM’s Captain’s Pantry are (L-R) Martin Area Farmers Market managers Samantha Goyret and Caroline Ideus, Caroline’s son Conrad, Office of Housing Firector Ryan Martin and Office of Housing Assistant Director Laura Kepler.
