The Warrior Food Pantry opened on Camp Humphreys, South Korea, May 8, 2024. (Luis Garcia/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — U.S. troops in South Korea struggling to feed their families have access to a new food pantry on this base as of this week.
The Warrior Food Pantry at Humphreys, the largest U.S. military base overseas, opened its doors Wednesday after a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday.
Army Maj. Gen. William Taylor, commander of the 2nd Infantry Division, described the pantry as a tangible example of a community rallying to assist those in need.
“One thing that I’ve seen over the years that allows people to be successful is hope,” he said in a speech at the ceremony. “And hope, a lot of times, needs something tangible.”
Overall, about 26% of active-duty troops do not have regular access to food for their families, but researchers are unable to determine why, according to a Rand report published Jan. 3, 2023.
Humphreys is the latest U.S. base in the Indo-Pacific to open a food pantry for its troops. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni expanded its facility in November. One also opened that month at Camp Foster, a Marine base on Okinawa.
The Warrior Food Pantry opened on Camp Humphreys, South Korea, May 8, 2024. (Luis Garcia/Stars and Stripes)
The 2nd ID, with headquarters at Humphreys, first considered opening a food bank in September 2022, Lindsey Geraci, a 2nd ID program coordinator, told Stars and Stripes after Monday’s ribbon-cutting.
A make-shift pantry opened in November 2022 at the base chapel; however, restrictive business hours and unit-based eligibility requirements were hurdles for troops and their families, Geraci said.
“The need was so strong for a larger, more enduring food pantry … to support the whole community,” she added.
The pantry has already generated interest at the base, Geraci said. A family member reached out for assistance Friday after their service member’s pay was garnished due to an overpayment issue.
The new food bank will lift access restrictions by having designated business hours. It is open to all the roughly 28,500 U.S. service members and their families in South Korea, regardless of their military branch and unit.
The food bank is near the Eighth Army Wightman Noncommissioned Officer Academy. The building previously served as a mailroom for the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade.
Volunteers from 2nd ID, American Red Cross and military spouses renovated the structure, abandoned for over a year, by building wooden shelves, replacing the flooring, ripping out mailboxes and trimming the overgrown vegetation outside.
The Warrior Food Pantry opened on Camp Humphreys, South Korea, May 8, 2024. (Luis Garcia/Stars and Stripes)
“We have done all of this on a zero-dollar budget,” Geraci said. “That is not an exaggeration.”
Inside the building Monday, shelves were stocked with canned goods, drink mixes, diapers and pamphlets on family assistance programs at the base.
“Everything that you see here has been donated,” Geraci said. “This is purely a labor of love from our community and we’re going to continue getting people involved.”
The Red Cross trained about 25 volunteers to work at the food bank in shifts, said Jennifer Brock, a regional program specialist for the organization.
Brock said people are welcome to bring non-perishable food items and diapers and wipes for donation during business hours.
The food bank will operate on an honor system and will not require people to disclose their names to take items from the pantry; however, those rules may change in the future, Geraci said.
“We hope that [people] won’t take advantage of this great resource that we have for the community,” she said. “If you need help and you’re willing to come here, then we’re willing to serve you.”
About 23% of U.S. troops overseas report food insecurity, defined as an economic or social condition that limits access to food, according to the Rand report prepared for Congress.
“While [the Defense Department] has taken an important step to understand the scope of food insecurity, more work needs to be done to grasp the underlying reasons why the rate of food insecurity reported in the survey is so high,” Rand senior economist Beth Asch said in a news release at the time.
The report, which used Defense Department survey data from 2016 and 2018, found that families who lived on post were “more likely to be food insecure.”
