MUSC e.a.t.s. (Ensuring Access to Sustenance)

MUSC e.a.t.s. is an emergency food pantry program started at MUSC through the innovation of Dr. Stephanie Kwon and Dr. Annie Andrews. The physicians were awarded a Women & Children's Excellence Grant to open the first food pantry at Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital Emergency Department in October 2021. Since that time the program has expanded with the opening of a pantry at the R. Keith Summey Medical Pavilion in July 2022, followed by several smaller clinics on Charleston's campus. The pantries provide emergency food assistance to patients and their families who screen positive for food insecurity during their visit and indicate they would like to take home a shelf-stable bag of food.

MUSC partners with the Lowcountry Food Bank's Food for Health program to stock the pantries with shelf-stable, nutritious food. Our MUSC volunteers help pack the bags and stock the shelves on a monthly basis. On ground the pantries are coordinated and run through the Office of Health Promotion.

A generous donation to our program from Humana Healthy Horizons of South Carolina allowed our program to expand to additional MUSC pediatric clinics in late 2023.

If you have any questions about the program or would like to make a donation, please email Laura Nance at nancel@musc.edu.