Grants

Terp Farm Experiential Educational Leadership Pilot Program Grant (2026-2028):

Sustainability Fund Award: $197,291.70 ($65 763.9/yr)

5 summer interns & 3 fall interns

Dining Services is proud to run Terp Farm, where our dining halls get much of their fresh produce from in summer,  early fall, and spring months! Terp Farm is run by Guy Kilpatric, who leads a series of volunteers and student interns to help plant, harvest, clean, and deliver thousands of pounds of fresh and local produce. Thanks to this sustainability fund award, Guy will be able to hire five (5) full time summer interns and three (3) part time fall interns for the next three years.  This pilot program is in place to ensure that Terp Farm can continue to expand its production capacity to increase the volume of local produce that Dining Services can serve to our community.  Below are some of the produce items Terp Farm provides our terps which will be supported by our student staff:

• Basil, Tomatoes, and Peppers in the summer that get processed into sauces and condiments to use all year
• Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squash, and Root Vegetables that can be stored and be used starting in the fall semester all the way through the spring

South Campus Plaza Pollinator Gardens (2024–2025)

UMD Sustainability Fund Grant: $21,535

The South Campus Dining Hall plaza was given a botanical refresh in 2025 as a result of a sustainability fund grant from the Office of Sustainability with help from the Campus Arboretum and Botanical Garden. The grant funded:

• 5+ new native trees to replace dead or dying specimens
• 270 square feet of native shrub planting space
• 250 square feet of native groundcover/perennial planting space
• 320 hours for an undergraduate summer intern to care for the new plants

All new botanicals are native species picked with the intention of supporting our campus pollinators and creating a more comfortable environment for students to relax in. Over half of the planting space is dedicated to creating pollinator gardens.

Pollinators are responsible for one out of every three bites of food you take, and about three fourths of flowering specimens suffer or even die from a decrease in pollinator activity. A pollinator garden is a support structure to ensure that pollinators stay in a space year-round.

With a green space now fit for pollinators and Terps alike, Dining Services is proud to have so many new botanical additions to our space. This project contributes to UMD’s Bee Campus USA pollinator habitat initiative.

Before

After

Sustainability Collective of Maryland (2023–2025)

UMD Sustainability Fund Grant: $74,762

The Sustainability Collective of Maryland was a sustainability grant from the UMD Sustainability Fund featuring 9 paid positions (eight departmental interns in Student Affairs and one manager) – three of which were in Dining Services.

The grant funded the following positions from 2024–2025:

• (1) Multicultural Advocate (Environmental and Social Justice)
• (1) DRF Energy and Utilities
• (1) DRF Operations
• (1) Catering, Conferences, and Visitor Services
• (1) Dining Services Marketing and Communications
• (1) Dining Services Green Dining
• (2) Terp to Terp Student Managers
• (1) Student Manager

Dining services interns created grant proposals like the South Campus Botanical Refresh Project, created events such as the Campus Cafe’s, Collect Them All! sticker collection program, and provided support for internal Dining Services events such as the campus farmers market, the campus pantry, and calculating our annual Coolfood Pledge report. 

This year, the collective will be housed under Dining Services Sustainability and will focus on waste auditing, compost education, and general sustainability tabling!

• Campus farmers market
• Campus Pantry support
• Annual Coolfood Pledge report calculations

Maryland Hunger Free Campus Grant (2023–2025)

State of Maryland Grant: $25,000 (2023), $18,000 (2024)

Current Iteration: $22,000 (2025)

The Maryland Hunger Free Campus program is run by the state of Maryland out of a pot of $150k dedicated to funding “support efforts to address food insecurity among students on Maryland campuses.” UMD uses our award money to fund one Graduate Assistant, working with the counseling center to study our campus food needs, and two Campus Pantry student staff members! Their work has helped us provide:

• The annual Food Access & Student Well-being Study (Graduate Assistant)
• Weekly Campus Pantry shift coverage (Pantry Student Staff)
• Pantry outreach and education (Pantry Student Staff)
• Donation sorting and distribution (Pantry Student Staff)

UMD Campus Pantry Expansion(2020–2021)

Student Government Association Donation: $300,740

The UMD Campus Pantry was established in its current form in 2021 thanks to roughly $300,740 donated by the Student Government Association. This donation came through two increments, one in 2020 and one in 2021, as reallocations of an abundance of funding caused by COVID-19 pausing many annual student activities. Dining Services was able to use these funds to take the Pantry’s previous location in the Cole Field House, open five hours a week, and move it to its current home under South Campus Dining Hall, open 30 hours a week. Upon relocation, the Pantry utilized full time staff members and 17 student jobs to begin processing donations and providing food for students, staff, and faculty here at UMD for free. Other resources the Pantry provides include:

• Teaching Kitchen: Our teaching kitchen offers classes and educational programming for community members to attend. Workshops have included the benefits of gardening, how to use up fresh fruits and vegetables and practicing key cooking skills.
• Terp Resource Room: The Terp Resource Room is a spot that students can use as a private room to access remote services either on-campus (counseling, nutrition, wellness, etc.) or off-campus (SNAP, WIC).
• Volunteer: The Pantry provides volunteer opportunities to students through Terps For Change or independent sign up. Students can be trained to help sort donations, man the front desk, take stock of the inventory, and help in the teaching kitchen.

The Pantry is maintained through other donations from many other generous donors.

AmeriCorps Vista (2019–2025)

UMD has partnered with The Campus Food System Education Project since 2019 to welcome an Americorps representative to link the UMD Campus Pantry, Terp Farm, and our three Campus Food Gardens. Our representative facilitates fresh produce harvest deliveries to the Pantry, as well as gardening, cooking, and nutrition education at the Pantry’s Teaching Kitchen. This award hopes to further UMD’s efforts to become a Hunger-Free campus and improve our community’s food literacy.

Food Recovery Network Expansion(2019)

Sustainability Fund Award: $4,541

The Food Recovery Network was established in 2011 by students who wanted to collect surplus food from UMDs dining halls and donate it to local establishments that could distribute the food to anyone going hungry in the DC area. In 2019, Dining Services sponsored a bid proposal for ~$4.5k (roughly the operating costs of the first three months of service) so that the organization could request greater funding from SGA to expand operations from that point. The Food Recovery Network rescues food from all three dining halls, sporting events, and other campus events. Rescued food is donated to the UMD Campus Pantry, as well as organizations in the college park community and DMV area.

Establishment of the UMD Terp Farm (2013)

Sustainability Fund Award: $124,400

In partnership with the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Terp Farm was established in 2013 with the help of $230,565 in departmental contributions from Dining services and the College of Agr. and $124,000 from the Sustainability Fund for a total of $354,965 dedicated to the project. Initially, the farm was created as a 3 year pilot which established a 2 acre vegetable farm with high tunnels for season extension. Below is a break down of how the funds were used: