Spurlock serves as a food donation drop-off location 

• Post Date: 11/5/2025
• Author: Nicole Frydman
• Reading Time: 4 minute read

• News tag

At the end of October, Spurlock staff received outreach from University of Illinois colleagues who were mobilizing to help support our local community through an upcoming crisis: 

As some of you will be aware, the government shut down is set to halt SNAP (the USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) for our low-income neighbors.

This is a national issue but especially in a year when we are thinking through Story & Place, we feel its local resonance deeply.

We invite you to help us try to mitigate the impact of this situation for our Odyssey Project students. Thanks to the efforts of Kate Spies, the Visiting Odyssey Project Academic Advisor and Student Support Coordinator, we are setting up an informal food pantry on the first floor of Levis. We welcome your donations. ANTOINETTE BURTON, Professor of History and Swanlund Endowed Chair

Spurlock’s team was in quick agreement: we wanted to join the efforts. Our response was to offer our space as a drop-off location for food donations and to help raise awareness of this critical community effort. It’s a small thing, to be sure, but all of us at Spurlock know the power of many people doing small things to make a large impact. That is how community should work. That’s the power of the people when we all row the same direction in the same boat. 

Food Insecurity in Champaign County

For those who aren’t aware, here’s some information about food insecurity in our local community: 

According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap data (external link), as of 2023 there were 28,680 Champaign County residents experiencing food insecurity. That represents nearly 14% of our entire population. In order to meet just the basic food needs in our local community, we would require an additional $19,758,000 per year. 

It’s easy to look around our community and believe we live in one of ample abundance and prosperity. But the numbers say otherwise. 

However, initiatives like the Odyssey Project at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (external link), which provides free University of Illinois courses to income-eligible adults, exist to help make a positive impact in the community. 

In a survey of recent Odyssey students, 88% have continued their education beyond the program and 75% have pursued new career development opportunities. Additionally, students say that participating in Odyssey...

• helped them improve their financial stability
• improved their writing skills
• increased their civic engagement
• positively impacted their family’s perception of learning
• improved feelings of empowerment and hope

What You Can Do

For the month of November at least (depending on the length of this current crisis), anyone can drop food off to the Spurlock Museum at any time during our open hours and our staff will facilitate the transfer to the Odyssey Project food pantry. 

As a cultural museum, we know all too well that a culture is what the people in a community make it. The culture we want to have here is one where we help each other. We welcome all who wish to be part of that culture to join us. 

If you’re interested in finding out about other food resources in our community (external link), you can visit the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District’s website (or view the images below).