Building What Lasts

On a busy day in Fort Wayne, the work did not end when the last box was unloaded. Students stayed to eat with neighbors, trade stories, and talk about what it means to show up for one another, especially when people do not always agree. Elsewhere, a different group of students spent months doing quieter work: calling schools, listening to teachers, and building the kind of statewide connections that make access to the arts possible long after a single event ends.

These are two recently completed, grant-funded efforts at Purdue University Fort Wayne that show what Community-Engaged Alliance (CEA) supports at its best: work grounded in community-identified needs, student-centered learning, reciprocal partnership, and plans that carry the work beyond the grant period.

Food security and dialogue across difference

In Fall 2025, Sherrie Steiner, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, guided students through Fort Wayne Fall 2025 Food Drive, an initiative designed around two challenges that often travel together: food insecurity in Allen County and the erosion of community trust when people lack meaningful opportunities to work across difference.

Embedded in a sociology course, students organized a multi-faith, no-barrier food drive that paired food distribution with dialogue over shared meals. The goal was practical and relational at the same time: put food directly where people could access it with dignity, while creating space for dialogue across a difference,” Steiner said. Reflecting the intent behind the design, Steiner emphasized that the work was never only about moving goods from one place to another. It was also about creating conditions for people to meet each other as neighbors.

Results at a glance

• 3,208 pounds of food collected
• Supplies distributed across 21 community food pantries
• 179 pounds of animal shelter supplies gathered
• 45 students engaged through course-based civic learning
• 18 community organizations partnered across religious and civic sectors
• 365 community members involved and 840 individuals directly impacted
• $11,575 raised in donations for famine relief

Just as important, the effort documented meaningful shifts in student learning and civic interest. Among evaluation respondents, 86% reported increased interest in the Sustainable Development Goals and global hunger and poverty initiatives, and 82% reported increased interest in interfaith learning and dialogue. Students with different political identities reported increased intentions to stay civically involved after participating, including a notable pattern in which self-identified conservative students were more likely to report plans for increased civic involvement after the experience.

The work also reflected what community-engaged efforts require in practice: flexibility, persistence, and disciplined coordination. Even with real-world constraints that included an internal grants processing delay, early media disinterest, and higher-than-anticipated vendor costs, students and partners sustained momentum.

Because the effort was designed with continuation in mind, remaining funds and discounted meal conversations have positioned the initiative to continue for up to two additional years, with growing departmental interest in expansion.