New UCO food program launches to fight student hunger

Broncho Bites, a refrigerator in the Nigh University Center, is the new way students on campus can eat without breaking the bank.

The University of Central Oklahoma launched a new food initiative, back in October of 2022, from leftover food on campus. The university’s food vendor, Chartwells, gives leftover food from Ayers kitchen daily during the week after lunch.

The food is taken to the refrigerator by volunteers, then an alert goes out to the UCO family to notify them there is food available.

To access the food, UCO students, faculty and staff will swipe their UCO card and take one or two to-go boxes. The boxes have a description of what food is inside.

Nicole Doherty says, “…we had 200 people or so swipe in,” for the amount of people who use the free food option.

The program comes from the high number of students at UCO who have food insecurities.

According to a survey back in 2019, 47% of students at the University of Central Oklahoma have food insecurity.