The Associated Students of Madison (ASM) passed a resolution at a meeting Wednesday night calling on the University of Wisconsin-Madison to provide financial support for Open Seat Food Pantry.
ASM created Open Seat in 2016 as a pilot initiative to address food insecurity on campus. This year, the food pantry faces record-level demand for food amid a significant increase in visits. Over 2,500 visits occurred in September 2025 compared to 550 visits in September 2023, an increase of about 355%.
The pantry is primarily stocked through donations and purchases made through the Food Access Fund, a donation fund run by UW-Madison’s Office of Student Affairs providing support for food insecurity initiatives on campus. This year, demand from the student body has significantly outpaced donations, according to Open Seat Internal Director Grace Van Voorst.
ASM funds the hourly pay of five student employees at the food pantry, budgeted at $18,180 in total for the 2025-26 school year. Currently, ASM is not allowed to allocate segregated fees toward purchasing food to stock the pantry, according to Van Voorst and ASM Chair Landis Varughese.
The resolution, which passed with 19 votes and two abstentions, called on campus leaders to finance the pantry.
“ASM does not possess the funding, staff or space to meet the scale of campus food insecurity alone, nor should segregated fees be relied upon to provide what are fundamentally institutional responsibilities,” the resolution reads.
Clara Prats, an ASM member who drafted the resolution, said in the meeting’s open forum period that UW-Madison should address growing food insecurity on campus, calling it an “institutional issue.”
“It should not be solely students’ responsibility to sustain the Open Seat, not financially, not logistically and not emotionally. Food insecurity on our campus is not a student government issue, it's an institutional issue,” Prats said.
UW-Madison Student Affairs did not respond to an immediate request for comment. Van Voorst is worried shelves will continue to empty before serving every student in need.
Ella Hanley is the college news editor for The Daily Cardinal. She previously served as associate news editor and wrote for the city and state news desks. She is a fourth-year journalism and criminal justice student. She has written breaking news and in-depth on Trump administration funding cuts to UW-Madison and local Madison people and organizations. Her work reporting on Yung Gravy has been featured in the New York Times. Follow her on Twitter at @ellamhanley.
