From Pantry to Plate: Connecting Cultures, Building Community

Food does more than meet a basic need. It can remind us of home, carry family traditions, and create connections with others. For students living far from home, however, finding familiar foods can sometimes be difficult or expensive. From Pantry to Plate: Connecting Cultures, Building Community will help make culturally diverse foods more accessible while creating opportunities for the OSU community to learn about and celebrate the many food traditions represented on our campus. From Pantry to Plate: Connecting Cultures, Building Community is a campus initiative or organization open to all students.

Our project has two connected parts. First, we will expand and sustain a Cultural Food Pantry at the OSU Family Resource Center. We will stock more foods that reflect the cultures, food preferences, and cooking traditions represented across OSU’s international community. Donor support will help expand the variety of culturally familiar foods available through the pantry, giving students the opportunity to find foods they recognize, know how to prepare, and are excited to take home. 

Second, we will launch Global Kitchen, a monthly cooking series featuring cuisines from different countries. International student organizations will help identify cuisines to highlight, ensuring that the series reflects the diverse cultures and experiences of our campus community. During each class, students will learn simple, practical ways to prepare nutritious meals and explore how pantry ingredients can be used in different recipes. Each Global Kitchen session will be an opportunity to learn, share, and connect. Students will receive recipe cards and selected ingredients to take home so they can recreate the meal themselves, along with information about where to find featured ingredients in the Stillwater community.

For us, From Pantry to Plate is about more than putting food on a shelf. It is about helping students find something familiar, discover something new, and feel more comfortable navigating food in a new country. Your gift will help us move food from the pantry to the plate while bringing people together. Donations will support the purchase of culturally familiar foods, expand the variety of items available through the pantry, provide ingredients for cooking classes and nutrition education activities, and develop recipe cards and other resources students can use beyond the classroom.

Whether a student is looking for an ingredient that reminds them of home or simply needs some help figuring out what to do with an unfamiliar food, your support can make a difference. Together, we can create a food pantry where international students can find food that feels familiar, learn new skills, share their cultures, and build connections within the OSU community. Thank you for helping us support international students at OSU, one meal, one recipe, and one connection at a time.