It’s hard to focus on excelling in college when one is not sure where their next meal is going to come from. As food insecurity swells into a silent epidemic, a BYU sponsor in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints (LDS) has stepped in a major way.

Jackson Payne of Deseret News reported Friday that, LDS, with its 27,000-pound food shipment delivered at the University of Cincinnati, features as the single largest donation in Bearcats Pantry history.

The donation comes at a critical time when nearly 30 percent of college students across the country are experiencing food insecurity. Many students in Cincinnati alone have been struggling with rising grocery prices, skipped meals, and increasing living costs. Additionally, the dried-up pipelines that once ensured SNAP benefits and the government-backed food-assistance coupons have left around 1,500 students without a key source of support.

“1,500 students were SNAP recipients, and so we, the Division of Student Affairs, worked very strategically trying to ensure that those students did not go through their daily operation without utilizing some sort of resources.” UC Associate Dean of Students Daniel Cummins said earlier this week.

BYU has been routinely carrying out similar food drives when traveling for football and basketball games. Thanks to this, it comes as a sigh of relief for Tommy Dang, an engineering student who is also working at Bearcat pantry, trying to find an act of balance between classes and costs. “Every morning, I usually wake up early to go to my first class, and I tend to not eat every morning,” said Dang. “As a college student, you want to put all the effort into studying. I don’t want all those people to face the same problem.”

Since 2019, the university’s COUGS CARE program has donated food to every opponent it faces during football and basketball seasons. In 2024 alone, BYU contributed 40,000 pounds of food to Oklahoma State’s “Our Daily Bread” pantry, among other efforts. This season too, BYU has supported schools in East Carolina by collecting food and hygiene items for the ECU Williams-Ross Purple Pantry, Colorado by hosting a book drive for the Family Learning Center of Boulder, and Arizona by reinforcing the program’s reputation as one of the few major athletic programs consistently assisting opponents in times of need.

“I think it’s great because the game’s a game, but to actually help people is much more important than the score,” said BYU alumnus Alycia McClurg. Rivals on the field, but united by a common cause off it, the BYU vs Cincinnati game on Saturday will stand for something much bigger: An act of generosity that strives to fight the shame, isolation, and ignorance that is food insecurity.