The Student Bar Association’s food security committee is gathering data about student experiences with a lack of local, affordable food options and planning free food events during its inaugural semester to combat law student food insecurity.

SBA Sen. Elan Reisner, the chair of the Special Committee on Food Security, said he was inspired to launch the committee in April after he heard his peers joking about skipping meals last semester. Reisner said the committee is hoping to organize a Thanksgiving event to distribute meals to law students and is currently administering a survey on food insecurity to GW Law students.

“If you’re hungry, you’re going to perform worse on a final,” Reisner said. “If you’re hungry, you’re going to be stressed more than the average person.”

GW added all-you-care-to-eat dining halls in Thurston and Shenkman halls to campus meal plans in 2022 in an effort to alleviate food insecurity on campus and offer healthy and “high-quality” food options for students. Prior to the opening of dining halls on campus, students voiced concerns about a lack of food options accessible by GWorld swipes, including Student Government Association leaders, who created a list of recommendations in 2019 for more dining hall and meal deal options for the University to implement. All registered GW students, including law and graduate students, are able to purchase any of the meal plans GW offers.

Reisner said the committee of five SBA members has met twice so far this semester and plans to continue meeting throughout the year but has not outlined a specific meeting schedule. He said he’s mentioned the committee to SBA senators at recent full senate meetings to grow committee membership and has recruited at least one of the newly appointed senators to join the group. The committee currently consists of SBA members from the executive and legislative branches, but Reisner said he is “open” to inviting non-SBA law students to meetings so they can also provide feedback on campus food accessibility.

He said the committee launched the survey at the start of the semester, which asks students if they have experienced food insecurity on campus and what they believe is its predicted effect on their academic performance. Questions also asked students about their awareness of GW’s food pantry, The Store, in the District House basement and if they would be interested in “peer support” programs, like a Thanksgiving food distribution initiative led by the SBA, to provide food to students.

Reisner said the committee included the survey in the weekly SBA email newsletter, which GW Law distributes to the school’s student body.

So far the survey has garnered over 50 responses — about 3 percent of GW Law’s total population — and has revealed a lack of respondents’ awareness of food resources. 62.7 percent of surveyed students responded that they were not aware of GW’s food pantry and 78 percent said they were not aware of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal initiative that allocates funding to low-income individuals to purchase food, previously known as food stamps.

Survey respondents said it would be “advantageous” to them if the University supplied healthier free food options at law school events instead of the frequently offered pizza and donuts and if officials increased advertisements of the food pantry in places, like the SBA newsletter and GW’s website to increase student awareness of the resource.

Reisner said D.C.’s high cost of living and an influx of law students taking out student loans has contributed to more GW students facing food insecurity.

A Department of Education study from June 2021 found 23 percent of undergraduates and 12 percent of U.S. graduate students in the United States experienced a lack of accessible food options within the year.

“When you have an issue like food insecurity, you need to have a way to get a starting point,” Reisner said. “You need to understand the issue in a way that’s not just editorializing, that’s actually grounded and true.”

Briahnn Middleton, the SBA’s director of legislative affairs and a Special Committee on Food Security member, said she wants to present the survey results to GW Law deans and work with officials to implement a food distribution program to provide more free food options to students on campus.

“Being the third biggest law school, I think we really do need to pay more attention to the issue,” Middleton said.

Middleton said the committee is developing an event for Thanksgiving so students who are staying in the D.C. can receive free food or “meal prep” meals. She said the committee is still in the process of organizing and planning the event to determine the most efficient way to distribute food to students.

As a first-year law student, Middleton said many of her peers have told her they were not aware they could purchase meal plans as law students, resulting in many of them not eating for the entirety of their school day because of a lack of accessible food separate from GW meal plans.

“I’m at the school from like 12 to 8 most days, and a lot of people I know are not eating from the time they come to campus to the time they leave,” Middleton said. “So I think nutrition and stuff like that can really impact your performance at school.”

SBA Executive Vice President Nigel Walton said he joined the committee because he has experienced food insecurity himself, citing times he had to choose between a meal and paying rent during his time in law school. He said the recent increases in GW tuition has caused more students to “wonder” where their next meal will come from, and he believes “no one should have to choose” between food and other monetary obligations.

Tuition for full-time students at GW Law currently comes out to $72,520 per year, a 3.97 percent increase from the rate for the 2023-24 academic school year of $69,740.

Walton said he hopes to “collaborate” with law school officials like Dean of Students Jason Belk and the Dean’s Advisory Council to create events to distribute free food to students.

“Even if the majority of students may not be food insecure, whatever that may mean, there are still some students, and if there’s some that means there’s too many,” Walton said.