College students looking for food in the cafeteria often need to swipe their i.d. card at the door first. At the beginning of the term, they or their parents pay a certain amount of money for a certain number of meals. What happens when the term ends, though, and students have meals left over? In many schools, the result is a snack fest, where students dodge into and out of the dining hall to grab a brownie or pick up some chips for friends. At UCLA in Los Angeles, though, students have another plan. They’ve created a program, “Swipes for the Homeless,” in which those leftover meals are donated to the city’s homeless.

“We’ve had a very positive effect in the community, and not just in terms of passing out the food. We spend time with homeless individuals and share meals with them,” UCLA’s Bryan Pezeshki, the Swipes founder, told GOOD.

Students in UCLA's Swipes for the Homeless program fill a truck with the food donations their unused meal plan swipes provided. (Photo by BRYAN PEZESHKI, Swipes for the Homeless)