(02/16/26) BATON ROUGE, La. — With a pair of scissors in hand and a crowd of excited supporters crammed into the hallway around him, Eric Greely beamed as he cut a red ribbon spanning the doorway of a new food pantry for students at Capitol High School in Baton Rouge.

“These kids are going to come to school, and they won’t be hungry and they don’t have to worry about that,” Greely, the school’s principal, said during the Feb. 13 ceremony. “They can come to focus on their life and what they’re going to do moving toward the future.”

The pantry, set up in a former classroom, is called the Lion’s Den — a reference to the mascot of the school, which houses sixth through 12th grades. Students can visit and take home canned goods, bags of beans and rice, boxes of pasta, healthy snacks and even frozen items.

“Our soft opening was incredible,” Greely said. “We’re feeding a lot of families, let me tell you.”

He added: “It takes a village to do what we’re doing here.”

That village includes the LSU AgCenter, Baton Rouge General, the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, the Charles Lamar Family Foundation and the Joe Burrow Foundation.

The AgCenter’s Sharman Charles, who directs the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program in Louisiana, and Makenzie Miller, a local food systems specialist, worked with other partners to get the food pantry off the ground. Signage featuring nutrition and food safety information and recipe cards based on AgCenter nutrition experts’ recommendations are displayed in the pantry.

Now, the AgCenter is gearing up for a companion initiative: teaching nutrition education classes to help students make healthier eating choices.

“It’s a great way of showcasing extension’s mission and community partnerships as well as the AgCenter and its broader mission of helping bring the university to the people,” Charles said.

The AgCenter has been involved in establishing food pantries at other schools in Baton Rouge. The one at Tara High School, which opened in 2023, was the first.

The pantries are critical resources in food-insecure areas such as the neighborhood surrounding Greenwell Springs Road where Capitol High is located, said Dewanna Drewery, a district administrator with the East Baton Rouge Parish Public School System who oversees health, physical education and wellness programs. Not only do they provide food, she said; they also can play a part in student success.

“We want our students to be productive in the classroom,” said Drewery, a former AgCenter nutrition agent. “Studies show if you’re well nourished, you’re going to do well.”

For Courtney Pitts, an AgCenter nutrition extension associate, the project has personal significance. She attended Capitol High at its previous campus and is a member of its alumni association, which also is helping with the pantry.

“Being part of the community is what this is really about,” Pitts said before joining colleagues and school athletes to pack foods into take-home boxes. “The students are going to be able to look in the pantry and take things back home to their homes, where they may not have access to healthy foods. I walked not these actual halls, but the halls on North 23rd Street, and many of my classmates have students that are here now — so it’s very important to me to see this come to fruition.”

Principal Eric Greely, center, smiles after cutting a ribbon to mark the opening of Capitol High School's new Lion's Den food pantry on Feb. 13. Supporters joining Greely include, from left, Charles W. Lamar III, president of the Charles Lamar Family Foundation; Gina E. Eubanks, associate vice president of the LSU AgCenter; Sharman Charles, EFNEP program director with the AgCenter; Metro Council member Cleve Dunn; Leslie Blanchard, member of the Joe Burrow Foundation Board of Advisors; Edgardo Tenreiro, CEO of Baton Rouge General; and Dewanna Drewery, district administrator with the East Baton Rouge Parish Public School System. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Nina Begue, left, an LSU AgCenter nutrition agent in East Baton Rouge Parish, helps pack take-home boxes in the Lion's Den food pantry at Capitol High School. Her colleagues Courtney Pitts and Makenzie Miller are seen in background. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Visitors check out the offerings in the new Lion's Den food pantry at Capitol High School following a ribbon-cutting ceremony held Feb. 13. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Canned goods and other items sit on the shelves of the new Lion's Den food pantry at Capitol High School. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter