MANKATO — The Campus Kitchen program feeds 328 hungry people each week. It cuts down on cafeteria waste, making it one of the greener endeavors on campus. And it makes Minnesota State University look good.

So why is it in danger of dying?

Campus Kitchen, which will hold its biggest fundraiser of the year next week, no longer operates with funds from the original grant that brought it here three years ago.

That $65,000 grant has been used up, and now the only way it will survive is if fundraising brings in the necessary $70,000 to keep it alive. The other option is to have the university fund it. But that — in days of belt-tightening and program reduction — doesn’t appear likely.

An MSU without the Campus Kitchen program is something its chief operator doesn’t want to confront.

“I haven’t thought about it because I don’t want to,” Campus Kitchen program coordinator Sammie Eckerson said. “I’m hoping the school will step in and say, ‘We’ll make up the difference, it’s a major part of the university.’”

Campus Kitchens works like this:

Student volunteers rescue excess food from campus dining service kitchens — food that has been prepared but not served — and box it up in individual meals. They then deliver it to places such as homeless shelters.

When it began, it started small: a handful of volunteers doing about 30 meals a week.

By now, however, 4,000 people have volunteered with the program, including students, faculty and even administrators. The average meal-boxing group numbers 30 volunteers.

“I’ve had the chance myself to volunteer from time to time and help out and found it a real satisfying experience,” MSU Provost and Academic Affairs Vice President Scott Olson said. “We really think it’s a great program that gives our students exposure to real-world problem-solving situations, but it also has a nice component of service outreach to the community.”

This year the program is running on the $50,000 it raised last year. But it needs more this year, partly because of a change in state law that requires them to purchase more insurance.

Eckerson said she’s nervous about the fate of the program. Last year, she said, it felt like a Herculean feat to raise $50,000. Obviously it will be harder raising 40 percent more.

They tried going back to the source of the original grant, the Campus Kitchens Project in Washington, D.C. They’re still working on that request, but it doesn’t look good. The group is in the process of launching seven new Campus Kitchen affiliates around the country.

Eckerson said whether MSU has the program or not isn’t the issue. What’s important, she said, is the people who benefit from it.

Autumn is when the demand for programs such as Campus Kitchens starts to climb. Colder whether sends more people to shelters and food shelves, including the Salvation Army men’s shelter, traditionally a recipient of Campus Kitchen’s efforts.

“Now that the Salvation Army is open, we’re at 328 meals per week,” Eckerson said.

The program also has spawned a cottage industry of innovative teaching opportunities. The College of Business, especially, has taken the Campus Kitchen program and used it to teach students marketing and other business concepts.

One example is Project Apple, a program that collects fruit from the community’s otherwise ignored apple trees. It started two years ago and is still going strong with more than 1,500 pounds of apples collected this year for area food shelves, day cares and shelters.

“We want to make sure we were spreading the wealth,” Eckerson said. “We have the manpower to do this.”

About 30 classes per semester use the program for service learning projects. Others send students Eckerson’s way to volunteer. And some ask Eckerson to come to their classes to talk about hunger and homelessness issues.

Despite the grim outlook, Eckerson said there is reason for optimism. Response so far to the plight of the program has been supportive.

“People have been amazed and they’re wanting to help,” she said. “This summer when I was talking to Toppers Pizza and the River Hills Mall about it, they jumped up and said, ‘What can we do to help?’”

Added Olson, “The university will do what it can to try to keep that program going because we value it.”