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An Alabama House of Representatives committee approved a bill Wednesday to provide a designation for colleges working to combat food insecurity on campus and allow them to apply for additional grants to assist food access programs.
House Bill 273, sponsored by state Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, would require the Alabama Commission on Higher Education to establish a process by which qualified public institutions of higher education may be designated a hunger-free campus.
The Alabama House Ways and Means Education Committee voted unanimously to give the bill a favorable review.
Collins was absent from the committee meeting, and state Rep. Cynthia Lee Almond, R-Tuscaloosa, spoke on her behalf.
“This is a bill that we’ve actually been working on for a couple of years, and Mrs. Collins finally pulled it all together and got all the players at the table, so I’m proud to present this bill on her behalf,” Almond said.
“Basically, it’s not just to bring awareness of the fact that there are hungry students on campus—food insecurity on campus—but also to actually provide benefits to those students. So, this bill sets up that process,” said Almond of HB273.
The committee also adopted an amendment allowing private two- and four-year learning institutions to be included in the bill.
In order to receive a hunger-free campus designation, higher education institutions must establish a hunger-free task-force that meets at least three times a year and is made up of at least two students enrolled in the institution, as well as a representative from both the institution’s office of student affairs and financial office.
The task-force must also establish at least two program goals yearly and develop action plans for their implementation, hold or participate in at least one food insecurity awareness event per academic year and provide at least one physical food pantry on campus or information on local community-supported food pantries .
HB273 says campus hunger-free task-forces must also designate a staff member responsible for assisting students with receiving information on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits available to them on campus or in local community establishments.
The task-force must administer a student survey regarding food insecurity “and other basic needs of students” at least every two years.
Other task-force responsibilities laid out by HB273 include either developing a student meal credit donation program, where students can donate a portion of their meal plan to aid food pantry services, or a program to provide free food vouchers to students.
Hunger-free campus designations will remain valid for two years and may be renewed upon application to ACHE.
HB273 states, “subject to the appropriation of funds by the legislature,” a higher learning intuition that has received a hunger-free campus designation from the commission, upon request, may receive grants for food pantry equipment and supplies from the commission “on a competitive basis.”
The bill says the commission will be responsible for determining the amount of each grant, “prioritizing grants made to designated public institutions of higher education with the highest percentages of eligible Pell Grant recipient enrollment.”
ACHE Executive Director Dr. Jim Purcell also spoke before the committee regarding HB273.
Purcell said, although the legislature denied ACHE its request for $200,000 for the proposed hunger-free grant fund, the commission may still request funds from elsewhere and fulfill HB273’s other requirements.
“We actually asked for funding. It isn’t in the current budget, so, to me, this is really setting up that fund,” Purcell said of the bill. “There’s a national organization that helps find funds, so there is other ways for us to receive funds.”
Purcell said, while the legislature didn’t finance ACHE’s fund for hunger-free campus grants for 2025-26, the commission will focus on reviewing and certifying universities that have applied for a hunger-free designation until a time in which they can award those institutions grants.
“The big thing is, in order for them to have a food bank maybe on campus, they’re gonna need to have a place that needs to be renovated, it needs to have industrial rate refrigerators and those kinds of things,” Purcell said. “And this fund would be a—really to jumpstart those local initiatives.”
“Once you get one of those food bank things started locally and you have, you know, an active 10,000 students on a campus helping you, it can really produce a lot of good food in a short period of time at low costs,” he continued.
Almond explained HB273 originated at the request of University of Alabama students who asked her to introduce the legislation based on national nonprofit, Swipe Out Hunger’s Hunger-Free Campus Bill.
Versions of the bill which seek to award funding to public colleges working to address student hunger have been passed in 10 states and introduced in 11.
If passed, HB273 will go into effect Oct. 1, 2025.
