Kindness for Cans initiative shifts into gear

Parking and Transportation Services is hosting the Kindness for Cans initiative, continuing its previous two-semester streak. 

The event began April 3 and continues through Friday. Students may bring 10 cans to remove one outstanding parking citation. Dropoff is 8 a.m. to 5 p.m in Academic Support Facility Building Room 135 on the Edinburg campus and Vaquero Plaza Building A Room 1.101A on the Brownsville campus.

The approved canned food items include vegetables, beans, soups, fruits and more. All items collected from the donations will be sent to the UTRGV Student Food Pantry.

In an interview with The Rider last Tuesday, Parking Services Director Pablo Aguilar said the idea came from a conversation with his co-worker about ways to give back to the community. After realizing students and faculty and staff members face financial hardships, the initiative was created to be a “win-win” for both sides. 

Aguilar said during the first run of the event in Spring 2022, they had good participation.

“We were able to collect over 2,400 cans between campuses,” he said. 

For this semester however, Aguilar said he has a more aggressive goal. 

“We wanna pick up at least 2,800 [cans],” he said. “… We wanna increase what we can continue donating to the university food pantry and just continue making that impact.” 

Aguilar said many of the citations students and faculty receive are for not having the parking permit in the right position, or not having one at all. 

“That usually happens at the beginning every semester, [but] it does die down after the semester starts,” he said.

Although there is no limit to the number of citations that can be removed, they do not include removing a boot from your car. 

Citations can be removed for the following reasons: displaying an expired decal, double or multiple parking, failure to display a current parking permit, improper zone parking, parking permit not properly affixed to a windshield and unpaid Luke pay station tickets. Late fees on these citations will also be removed.

In order for the citation to be removed, students must bring their student ID, citation ticket or license plate number.

Aguilar hopes that after this current fiscal year, there will be enough data to determine if the initiative is increasing or decreasing the rate that citations are being given. 

“We’re too early to get any historical data,” he said. “… Initially, my thoughts are that we’re still issuing the same quantity of citations. … Gradually, [over the semester] we see a decline [in citations].”

He said this is a good opportunity for the university community. 

“We openly encourage [supporting the community] and encourage people to engage in even more acts of kindness,” Aguilar said. “We just hope that this effort just makes a positive impact on our campus, and in students’ lives, and employees as well, so we can continue doing this.”

The pantry receives about 16 pounds of student donated foods monthly, but during its large-scale donation drives, the amount can range from 200 to 400 pounds of food, said Maria Barrera, a communication sciences and disorders junior who works as an attendant at the pantry on the Edinburg campus. 

The food pantry also receives donations from outside organizations during these drives, where foods other than canned goods are collected, such as dried fruits, snacks and ramen.

“Anything you can put in a can, we’ve got in here,” said Eric Martinez, an electrical engineering senior who also works as an attendant at the pantry on the Edinburg campus.

Volunteers in the pantry sort and transport food, but do not collect it from grocery stores. 

Barrera said the pantry is careful about food that is donated. 

“We try to stay away from opened items if they’re not individually wrapped,” she said. “… We can’t give out an open box of cereal because, obviously, it’s a health risk. There aren’t any items that are specifically not allowed, only the condition that they are in.” 

To request food from the pantry, recipients must fill out a form online at https://www.utrgv.edu/foodpantry/, where a list of the items in the pantry is shown, and they can choose what they want. After filling out the form, they can pick up what they ordered. 

When the donated food runs low, the pantry can order from the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley; however, the food is not similar to what is donated by the UTRGV community and it comes with a fee to order. 

“Whenever we get donations, we really enjoy it because it kind of alleviates the financial aspect of [running the pantry],” Barrera said.

Barrera said the food pantry is available to all students, with no requirements outside of being enrolled.

“All of our forms are available online,” she said. “It’s a pretty simple process, and it only takes 15 minutes, maybe.”

Those considering a donation to the Kindness for Cans drive are encouraged to think outside the box.

“We have a lot of corn, we have a lot of green beans,” Martinez said. “… If you could get creative and see if you could make it a little more diverse in terms of the stuff donated, it would be really helpful for the people that come in and get food from here because it’s a lot better than the stuff we already have.”

Mechanical engineering sophomore Osvaldo Curiel said the event is an interesting way to replenish the food pantry. 

“It incentivizes them to bring in food,” Curiel said. “I think it’s a very interesting way to do that, and, I don’t think, it’s also in a good position where it’s hard to take advantage of, because who’s gonna bring 10 cans with them to get rid of a parking violation?”