Last semester, roommates Mitchell Kaye and Connor Balint were waiting at the Rawlings Hall bus stop when a homeless man approached them to ask for food.
Balint, a 19-year-old UF accounting freshman, walked into Subway and bought the hungry man a sandwich using his Flex Bucks.
It cost the UF accounting freshman nothing to feed the man, giving Kaye, a 19-year-old UF marketing freshman, an idea to put his Flex Bucks to better use.
After a month of planning, Kaye partnered with Bread of the Mighty Food Bank in Gainesville to organize a food drive at Rawlings Hall P.O.D. Market using unneeded Flex Bucks.
Students will be encouraged to buy nonperishable items with their leftover Flex Bucks from 1 to 4 p.m. April 19 and 20, an event Kaye coined Flex Philanthropy.
“It’d be nice to just wipe out the P.O.D.” he said.
According to Gator Dining’s website, Flex Bucks accompany most student meal plans and can range from $200 to $450. If students have Flex Bucks left over at the end of the semester, the money disappears.
Sara Girard, a UF telecommunication freshman, works behind-the-scenes in Flex Philanthropy’s YouTube videos and manages its Facebook and Twitter accounts to inform students about the food drive.
“It’s something that’s easy and should appeal to a lot of people because if they don’t use their Flex Bucks, they disappear,” Girard, 19, said. “No matter what, it helps a lot of people.”
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 3/24/2015 under the headline “Flex Bucks food drive”]
