CAMPUS

CAMPUS 2 | Tuesday, March 3, 2020 CRIME MAP

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ON PAGE 5 Graduate student improves efficiency of food pantry

OLIVIA ALBERT Lantern reporter albert.228@osu.edu

Anthony Unger graduated from Ohio State in 2012 with a degree in chemical engineering and a job at tire company Bridgestone.

Six years after graduation, Unger found his way back to Ohio State with the goal of giving back to the community and expanding his career beyond chemistry.

Unger, a graduate student in business administration, said he was introduced to Lutheran Social Services Food Pantry

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through Fisher Board Fellows, a student-run organization at the Fisher College of Business. Now, Unger is using his skills in data analysis to make the food pantry more efficient.

“I saw it as a really nice opportunity to do something beyond the classroom, connect to the outside community and use some of my experience in the business world to make an impact,” Unger said. Each of the program’s 30 members is paired with a nonprofit to work with during the second year of their graduate program. Unger said LSS was his top choice.

Jennifer Fralic, director of LSS, said the pantry serves 12 counties and more than 4,000 families per month and is moving toward becoming more time and cost efficient.

“The projects that we’re working on with Anthony is a remodeling of our facilities to enable us to be more efficient and effective in providing emergency food to our community,” Fralic said.

To shop at the food pantry, Fralic said a family must be at or below twice the federal poverty level, which is $26,200 for a family of four, according to the federal government. From there, clients create a family profile online and list the number of people and their ages in the household in order to determine how many points they will receive to use on items at the pantry.

With an online ordering system implemented in 2018, Fralic said clients can order nonperishable items online for pick up at the distribution centers. Once clients arrive at the pantry to pick up, they can shop for perishable items as well.

Unger, the only person who helps the pantry with data and operations, said though the online ordering system is a great system, it is hard to collect data.

“The dashboards on there aren’t very intuitive,” Unger said. “But there’s the opportunity to export all of that data.”

Unger said he exports the data into Microsoft Excel, analyzes it and comes up with insights regarding the most popular among 66 nonperishable products and how quickly they move off of the shelves, thereby increasing efficiency for the pantry.

“We can use the data to focus on those items moving forward, so that we can most effectively and efficiently get those items in and make sure that they’re available for the customers,” Unger said.

Unger said the data is also helpI can’t think of another food pantry that actually maintains a live accounting of their inventory. JENNIFER FRALIC Director of LSS “

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COURTESY OF SARAH MILLER Anthony Unger, a graduate student in business administration, collects and analyzes customer data to improve cost and space efficiency at the Lutheran Social Services Food Pantry.

ful in determining the next-best items to offer when certain products are out of stock.

“It’s rare,” Fralic said. “I can’t think of another food pantry that actually maintains a live accounting of their inventory.”

The goal of the initiative is to better serve the customer, Unger said.

“The things that we can do to be more operationally efficient and improve the process flow potentially can get the customer in and out of the food pantry faster, and they have a better experience, instead of sitting in the pantry waiting for things that they need,” he said. Unger said this also saves the pantry time and money because it can now calculate the most cost-efficient time to reorder an item.

With limited space in the warehouse that houses the products, Fralic said the new system has been very efficient.

“By knowing what clients purchase through Anthony’s analysis of how fast items move, we’re maximizing the space and making sure we have the items they want in stock,” Fralic said.

Parents prep care packages for students in need

JESSICA LANGER For The Lantern langer.42@osu.edu

Ohio State students are getting a mother’s love delivered to their door by a group of parents assembling care packages.

Ohio State mom Marla Gitelson-O’Brian said she saw a group on Facebook at another university with a similar mission, and this prompted her to bring the idea to Ohio State, where her son Tyler O’Brian, a fourth-year in criminal justice, attends. Since the project’s start in November 2019, more than 100 Ohio State students have received care packages from the Kindness Project.

The Kindness Project gathered hundreds of contributors to help students who may have had a bad day or needed some extra support. Gitelson-O’Brian said the packages consist of razors, soap, shaving cream, tampons, snacks, microwavable dinners, cereal bars and a $20 gift card to select restaurants on North High Street.

“We describe it as: We’re a group of Buckeye parents that want to spread the love to all students and let them know people care about them,” Gitelson-O’Brian said.

The project coordinates distribution with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Student Advocacy Center, which select students they believe are in need of support. The parents are unaware of students’ identities and are only told by the two ofI just thought it would be really sweet to have local parents actually put something together and then deliver it to them at the door. CRYSTAL DUNCAN Ohio State alumna and parent “

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The Kindness Project delivers the packages to the offices on Sunday mornings, and the offices organize where the packages go from there, Gitelson-O’Brian said. During the first delivery in November, Gitelson-O’Brian said there were 80 gender-specific packages and 20 nonspecific packages given out.

The project created a Facebook page called “Ohio State University (OSU) Parents & Alumni Giving” Jan. 23 to make it easier to share information with other parents without it getting lost in a larger Ohio State parent group that has more than 4,000 members, Gitelson-O’Brian said. The kindness group had 371 members at the time of publication.

“Even when we did the first care package, and I was overwhelmed on how many donations, I had so many parents tell me, ‘I didn’t even know about it. I would have sent you some,’” Gitelson-O’Brian said. In the Facebook group, the project announced a February collaboration with Buckeye Food Alliance, an on-campus food pantry. According to the Facebook posts, monetary contributions, Amazon packages with baking supplies, spices, pasta, coffee grounds, toilet paper, personal-care items and cereal are all accepted. Students with meal plans can also donate swipes to BFA through Virtual Donations on Grubhub, and parents are able to donate to giveto.osu.edu.

BFA collected more than $400 worth of food, spices, seasonings, coffee and baking essentials for the Kindness Project Feb. 4. Another $370 order was made Feb. 9. According to a Facebook post, a Feb. 16 order brought the total to $1,600.

Before the Kindness Project began, Ohio State alumna and parent Crystal Duncan said about 12 families would create care packages for their own children at Ohio State in 2017 and 2018 by gathering in Panera Bread’s community room to assemble care packages with food, snacks and items such as stress balls. The packages would then be delivered to students’ residence halls.

“I just thought it would be really sweet to have local parents actually put something together and then deliver it to them at the door,” Duncan said.

The parents received an excess of donations for the care packages, and as a result, they gave out random acts-of-kindness COURTESY OF MARLA GITELSON-O’BRIAN Marla Gitelson-O’Brian, Cindy Farnsworth and Denise Busch after unloading 100 kindness packages in November.

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cation abroad programs to China have been canceled, but warning levels for other countries haven’t warranted a decision on the status of summer programming, Simmons said.

“It’s definitely a fluid situation,” Simmons said. “University officials and risk management continue to monitor the situation.”

Eighteen students are studying abroad in Italy and are currently in the process of making travel arrangements to return home, Maureen Miller, director of communications in the Office of International Affairs, said in an email. “We are in the very early stages of working out details of next steps with respect to academic programs,” Miller said.

It is not immediately clear whether there will be refunds or other financial compensation for returning study abroad students. As of March 2, Italy has 1,689 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 35 deaths, according to WHO.

The university has no study abroad programs in Iran, and there are no students there, Miller said. Iran has 978 confirmed cases and 54 deaths, according to WHO.

On Jan. 30, the university announced its first travel restriction, limiting travel to China until March 6, according to a univer

We are in the very early stages of working out details of next steps with respect to academic programs. MAUREEN MILLER Director of communications in the Office of International Affairs “

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sitywide email. On Feb. 19, this restriction was extended to April 20.

The university has also since suspended university-sponsored travel to South Korea, Italy and Iran until April 20.

According to a universitywide email, those who travel to restricted areas must report their travel to the university at travelreporting@ osumc.edu through April 20.

A universitywide email sent Feb. 29 said the best way to prevent the spread of any disease is to practice routine hygiene etiquette.

“There is no need to change any routine campus activities or behaviors due to COVID-19,” the email said.

At the time of publication, there are no confirmed cases in Ohio, according to the CDC. There have been 43 cases and two deaths in the United States.

While some students are abruptly returning home from study abroad trips, other students are scrambling to rearrange their spring break plans.

In August 2019, Gus Workman, a fourth-year in Chinese and electrical and computer engineering; Rahul Mansukhani, a fourthyear in finance; and three of their friends booked “a once in a lifetime kind of trip,” Mansukhani said.

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THEFT FROM MOTOR VEHICLE

CAMPUS AREA CRIME MAP: FEB. 24 - MARCH 1

ASSAULT

ROBBERY

ROBBERY

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The five friends planned to travel to China for a nontraditional spring break trip, Workman said, but the COVID-19 outbreak

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caused their plans to fall through. “We were originally aware of the situation, and we had determined that if the CDC thought it was OK, we would still go,” Workman said. “But then they started canceling all the flights, and so the situation worsened.” The friends rescheduled their trip to China for April 2021, Workman said.

The outbreak forced them to make last-minute travel plans for spring break, Mansukhani said. The friends will now drive to the Smoky Mountains, but because they rescheduled, they did not get a refund for their planned China trip.

“It’s like we are paying for two trips for one spring break,” Mansukhani said in an email.

Lily Dickson, a third-year in international studies, had a trip planned with two friends from Ohio State to visit their four friends studying abroad in Florence, Italy.

“We had this planned, and we saved up money since before Thanksgiving for this,” Dickson said. “It was so perfect because we were going to stay in their apartment for free and we just had to pay for our flights.”

Dickson said the increasing warning level of coronavirus

LILY MASLIA Outreach & Engagement Editor maslia.2@osu.edu

A robbery was reported to Columbus Police as having occurred at 3:57 p.m. Feb. 25 at Key Bank on North High Street near East 12th Avenue. According to the online police log, the suspect presented a note to the complainant and displayed a knife. The complainant complied with the note, and the suspect took $1,200 and fled.

A theft from a motor vehicle was reported to Columbus Police as having occurred between 4:20 and 4:40 p.m. Feb. 25 on East Hudson Street near Summit Street. According to the online police log, unknown suspect(s) removed $700 in cash from a vehicle.

A robbery was reported to Columbus Police as having occurred at 3:21 a.m. Wednesday on East Hudson Street near Summit Street. According to the online police log, two men told the victim they had a weapon and then

in Italy caused tension in their friend group.

“I said if it gets to a level three, I’m not coming, and they were really mad, but then they literally got sent home so there was no choice,” Dickson said.

Dickson said that even though she is disappointed she’s no longer going to Italy, she looks forward to relaxing over spring break.

“Now I’m going to my grandma’s house in Florida with my mom on Monday,” Dickson said. “Not as exciting, but I get sunshine, I guess.”

Outreach and Engagement Editor Lily Maslia contributed to this story.

took his vehicle. The men were later arrested by Columbus Police.

A robbery was reported to Columbus Police as having occurred at 8:58 a.m. Friday at Berry Blendz on High Street near East 11th Avenue. According to the online police log, the suspect entered the business and displayed a knife and demanded money. The employee ran to the back of the restaurant and the suspect removed $240 in cash from the register.

An assault was reported to Columbus Police as having occurred at 12:20 a.m. Saturday at The Warehouse, formerly Bullwinkles, on North High Street near East 13th Avenue. According to the online police log, the victim found the suspect inside the bathroom having sexual intercourse with a female patron. The victim escorted the suspect out of the business, and the suspect began fighting and bit the victim two times, drawing blood. The victim denied medical attention.

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packages to students on the Oval, Duncan said. However, the project slowed down when their own children did not need as many care packages.

“After assembling so many care packages with so much stuff that our kids weren’t in need of, Marla suggested maybe we try to find a way to help kids who didn’t actually have parental support while they were at college,” she said. Gitelson-O’Brian and other mothers received thank-you cards from the students who received the care packages, which encouraged them to continue their efforts, Duncan said.

The Kindness Project plans to continue sending care packages in March, Gitelson-O’Brian said. The project is organizing another food drive with BFA in April and a school-supply drive in August.

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The Lantern is a student publication that is part of the School of Communication at The Ohio State University. It publishes issues Tuesday and Thursday, and online editions every day. The Lantern’s daily operations are funded through advertising and its academic pursuits are supported by the School of Communication. The School of Communication is committed to the highest professional standards for the newspaper in order to guarantee the fullest educational benefits from The Lantern experience.

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