TIAA Employees Donate Time, Food to Billiken Bounty

04/16/2019

Employees from TIAA and TIAA Bank, the University’s retirement services partner, gathered hundred of pounds of donations from across the country to benefit SLU’s student food resource center, Billiken Bounty.

TIAA and TIAA Bank employees from across the country contributed to a food drive that benefitted Billiken Bounty. Billiken Bounty executive board members junior Brandnea Butler (back row, second from left), and founders seniors Samantha Kiss and Maddy Leakey (first row, center), joined the Billiken and volunteers from TIAA to accept the donations. Photo by Amelia Flood

Representatives from TIAA and TIAA Bank delivered the 495 pounds of food to Billiken Bounty in Busch Student Center on Tuesday, April 16.

Billiken Bounty was one of a number of charities TIAA chose to support as part of its national charitable drive.

Founded in the fall of 2018, Billiken Bounty’s mission is to ensure that no student goes hungry on SLU’s campus. According to a survey Billiken Bounty’s organizers sent out in the project’s planning stages, about 20 percent of the University’s student body is at risk for food insecurity at some point in their college careers.

The food resource center is staffed by student volunteers who stock shelves, welcome their fellow students and to manage Billiken Bounty’s inventory. On Tuesday, April 16, TIAA staff members pitched in as well, coding donations, building shelving and hauling in bags and boxes of donated food.

Since opening, the resource center has served up nonperishable food items like beans and macaroni, with supporters sponsoring shelves of food and holding benefit drives.

This semester, Billiken Bounty recorded more than 100 student clients visits.

A drive through Billiken Backers netted $5,500 for the food resource and the University’s Department of Public Safety and other SLU divisions have hosted drives.

Saint Louis University is a Catholic, Jesuit institution that values academic excellence, life-changing research, compassionate health care, and a strong commitment to faith and service. Founded in 1818, the University fosters the intellectual and character development of more than 13,000 students on campuses in St. Louis and Madrid, Spain. Building on a legacy of now more than 200 years, Saint Louis University continues to move forward with an unwavering commitment to a higher purpose, a greater good.

Story by Amelia Flood, University Marketing and Communications