We often think of the college experience as late-night study sessions, athletics and preparing for a career. But for more than 40% of college and university students, there is another reality happening alongside all of that: not knowing where their next meal is coming from.

The hardest part is that hunger doesn’t always look like what we expect. It can look like the student sitting next to you in class. The athlete practicing after school. The student working two jobs while taking a full course load. The student who doesn’t want anyone to know they’re struggling.

For five years now, we have partnered with the Capital Area Food Bank to change the conversation around food insecurity on college campuses in our region through an annual Regional College Hunger Conference. This year’s conference, held on October 6 at George Washington University, was our largest yet and a wonderful day of collective action from our region’s top colleges and universities, corporation partners and community. We heard stories from students who faced hunger at various points of their college career and discussed the extensive research now available in this space that shows the deficit.

Together with the Capital Area Food Bank, we’re working hard to do more than just raise awareness of this issue, but create systems of support that protect a student’s dignity while helping them stay in college and reach their goals.

We’re proud that our member institutions now ALL have active food banks on campus that are playing a significant part in ending food insecurity of the over 400,000 students in the Washington region.