Seniors Swarm for Swipes for Hunger
by Mark Lee
USC–The Spring Swipe Out Hunger Donation Week began Saturday, April 25 and runs until Friday, May 1.
USC Swipe Out Hunger sets up tables near each dining hall at the end of every semester to ask freshmen to pledge their leftover dining dollars and swipes to feed the hungry. It has become a recent tradition for hungry upperclassmen who may not be fortunate enough to have a meal plan to congregate around these tables in the days leading up to finals.
With increasing student loan payments, pressure to find jobs, busier schedules, and increasing “DGAF” laziness, seniors face increasingly greater risk of hunger. With less time to work, money to buy food, and time to eat, various factors have left upperclassmen desperate for free food.
Senior Maria Rockefeller pleaded, “Please let me into a dining hall. I’ll even eat at EVK. Anything. Please.”
These seniors have become so desperate that they will even eat food that the homeless won’t touch.
Seniors typically crowd around the entrances of the dining halls hoping for a generous freshman to donate a “guest swipe” to feed them for just one meal. A few students approached Swipes for Hunger Week with different strategies in picking which dining hall to line up for.
“EVK is the most popular dining hall and handles the most traffic, so you have the best chance of getting into a dining hall there. But I don’t want to get swiped into EVK only to be disappointed as usual,” senior Andrew Carnegie explained as he waited with others outside Parkside Residential Dining Hall.
It seems that, in fact, beggars can be choosers.
Eager and waiting seniors have tried various other strategies to acquire free food from the dining halls in ways that could even avoid using swipes. Seniors worked together by positioning themselves at both the entrances and exits of Café 84. Seniors at the entrance would ask freshmen entering the dining halls to grab an extra slice of pizza or a piece of cake to give to the waiting hungry upperclassmen at the exits.
Desperate, famished, but experienced, super-senior and virgin Charles Kennedy told the Sack of Troy some of his best strategies to get the most out of a meal swipe, in case one were able to be swiped in. Kennedy suggests that seniors:
- Sneak in tupperware to save food for later.
- Refrain from eating any food or meals prior to the anticipated meal swipe.
- Bring empty milk jugs.
- Get swiped in for breakfast, and stay the entire day in order to eat lunch and dinner too.
- Avoid drinking anything to save stomach space for food.
- Avoid foods that expand in the stomach like carbs and filler foods.
USC Swipes for Hunger hopes to end the creatively sneaky, and somewhat illegal, food practices that these hungry seniors partake in by providing greater food security for those who really need it at USC. USC Swipes for Hunger hopes to restore dignity to USC’s graduating seniors and provide them with one last free hot meal before they must fend for themselves in the “real world.” While some seniors may have the ability to find a well paying job in the wild, others may be forced to lead nomadic lives, hunting and gathering for their next meals.
Please pledge your dining dollars and swipes, or make a direct donation here.
