Tips for scoring a free meal in college

Dear starving college student readers (all three of you),

With confusing meal plans with blocks and flex and the complicated mess of trying to sort out when and how you are going to eat, there should be a better way.  What if you made the majority of your meals FREE? (or very low cost.)  Well...YOU CAN!

Here are some ways I have learned to eat well for "real low cheap."

• Show up for every Student Activities Committee event.  Most of them revolve around food, and of course it's all free.  Wednesday night movie with pizza? Puh-lease, you can do it, if not to just show up for the first few minutes and walk away with free food.  Pie-eating contest? Do it! You'll feel so sick afterward you won't WANT to eat for a week.
• The same goes for Campus Ministry events. They're big on fair-trade coffee and root beer floats.  Also, retreats and SOUL trips might have an over-abundance of food and you end up getting to take it home.
• Join lots of clubs.  You don't have to go to the meetings for all of them, just get on the email list.  Anytime you see they are serving food, jump on it.
• Academic departments, depending on their involvement with their students, are also really good sources of food.  For example, the Theology department does have, from time to time, pizza, desserts, and other things.
• Be choosy with work study jobs.  Find out where the best food is. At SMU, Admissions is a great place for food.  They give away pizzas on overnight events, they always have cookies and popcorn in the office, and they LOVE to feed you.  Rumors are that Phone-A-Thon is another good source of food.  Strangely enough, the food service places seem to be one of the worst jobs when it comes to scoring food--they usually charge you and sometimes they have to throw away the food rather than give it to starving students. (Crazy, right?)
• Hang around the kitchens of your dorm.  Sometimes people will be cooking and won't be able to eat all their food. Lounges are a good source for pizza, too.  If you are like me and can smell Domino's a mile away, follow your nose and see if someone needs help cleaning up the rest of their pizza.  Also, just go snooping around your kitchen and other common areas from time to time--someone may have left some goodies out to share with the neighbors.

See how easy that was? Sure, it's not the healthiest food on the planet, but you're not going to do any better by dumpster-diving, either.  That's why you load up with fruits and veggies on your meal plan and eat for free the rest of the time.  Save money, save gas, and save the PLANET from more food waste!

Here to serve,
Lolly
Song of the week: "Hot Air Balloon" by Owl City
Evil thing of the week: Papers.