One rainy fall day in 2016, a Waco pastor and a professor set out piles of free produce under tents in the middle of Baylor University. Then they waited nervously to see if anyone would come.
They were shocked when more than 800 students attended, Pastor Ruben Andrade recalled this past week.
“We have pictures where there was a sea of students in line with their umbrellas, with their raincoats, pouring rain and lines waiting to get produce,” Andrade said. “We were just in awe. I kept saying in my mind, ‘I told you guys there was a need.’ ”
The Baylor Free Farmers Market celebrated its 10th anniversary on Wednesday. Andrade and his co-founder, Nathan Alleman, said the event has demonstrated the hidden reality of food insecurity on affluent campuses.
As a scholar of higher education, Alleman coauthored a book on that reality. Andrade learned about it first hand. He grew up in Waco and attended Baylor in the 1990s, observing that even in the so-called “Baylor bubble” some students were going hungry.
About two decades ago he became pastor of Family of Faith Church, which is known for its food drives. In the mid-2010s he learned that the majority of Baylor students depended on government loans or financial aid.
“So that just confirmed what I would see [on campus], that there were many individuals like myself that were attending Baylor because of a scholarship,” he said. “In my case, it was a Waco-area minority scholarship, or they were going to Baylor because of loans.”
They were students like Christian Miller, a graduate student who attended last week’s market. She said she often experienced food insecurity as a Baylor undergraduate paying for school on her own and saving for money to pay for student loans.
“A lot of what that looked like in undergrad was some really desperate [meals],” Miller said. “Toast sandwiches with mayonnaise and hot sauce, and that being the whole sandwich. … The desperation meals were quite frequent.”
Miller said that resources like the Baylor Free Farmers Market are crucial for students.
“I can go pick up food, and it’s not a big deal,” Miller said. “My fridge has been empty for probably three weeks now, so to be able to pick up groceries and have the time to do this is awesome.”
Andrade said that at first it was hard to convince people in the community and at Baylor officials that food insecurity on campus was a big problem.
“[I heard] comments like, Baylor kids can afford groceries, you’re going to the wrong campus, you should be at (McLennan Community College) or you should be in another area in a Waco neighborhood, and they need it more,” Andrade said. “So honestly, I was somewhat discouraged, but I went forward with the plan because I knew that there was a need, but I didn’t know if the students would be receptive.”
Baylor now supports the market as part of its year-round food aid efforts, partnering with the Central Texas Food Bank and other agencies.
It’s easy to look at Baylor’s $2.6 billion endowment and $87,113 annual price tag and assume its students should be able to afford food.
Alleman said the appearance of affluence can hide hunger.
“Institutions with more resources that tend to be more selective have been late to the party on this conversation because it’s not the population they think about serving the most,” Alleman said. “If you think about community colleges, MCC’s had a food pantry for years and years. We think regional or state universities, they’re serving students with very acute needs, and those needs are pretty obvious.”
Baylor’s Paul L. Foster Success Center estimated in 2024 that about 2,150 Baylor students experience some form of food insecurity each year, or more than 10% of students.
The impact of hunger is more than just physical, said Sarah Madsen, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Alabama.
Madsen worked with Alleman and Baylor alumnus Cara Cliburn Allen to write “Starving the Dream: Student Hunger and the Hidden Costs of Campus Affluence,” which was published last year.
“I think about it in two parts,” Madsen said. “One is a lack of sufficiently nutritious food, and the other part is the anxiety, stress, physical hunger or mental and emotional burden that then comes with either not having enough to eat or having to spend so much energy, mental and physical, trying to find food.”
Madsen said food insecurity is more than skipping meals — it’s trying to make small amounts of food stretch over an extended period or replacing meals with snacks from a vending machine.
“It can be shorter term, but it’s really when food is becoming your sacrifice, your margin to have the full Baylor experience.”
Food insecurity also means missing out on the Baylor student lifestyle — like going to Shorty’s Pizza Shack every Thursday with your friends or grabbing Starbucks while studying at the library.
Other resources on campus help prevent student hunger year-round. The Pantry stocks fresh produce, bread, milk, ready-to-eat meals and more. The Fridge, a series of snack hubs on campus, offers grab-and-go meals and snack foods.
The Daily Bread Cafe, which Baylor launched at East Village Dining Commons in 2023, offers students a hot or refrigerated meal for $2.
Austin Morrell, director of student support programs, said providing these resources on campus also means providing a space where students feel safe using the amenities.
“It’s a delicate balance of both awareness and honoring the student experience, but then also not engaging or encouraging that stigma,” Morrell said.
During the 2025-26 academic year, campus food pantry served 1,417 students, and more than 4,000 students attended the Free Farmers Market.
Alleman said the market is open to all students, with no one to check their financial aid forms or wallet.
“Making the resources clear, destigmatizing taking the food, which is why we do the Free Farmers Market, is just to make it available to everybody,” Alleman said. “Just like we want to destigmatize mental health, we want to destigmatize basic needs.”
Kalena Reynolds is a Baylor master’s student and editor-in-chief of The Baylor Lariat.
