On Jan. 10, Augustana College’s Student Government Association (SGA) and Augustana College Express Service (ACES) launched a new free grocery shuttle service for students.
Senior Nico Benvenuto, one of the ACES directors and an SGA member, said that the free grocery shuttle has been in the works since Sept. 2025. Due to ongoing issues with the ACES vans, the grocery shuttle was put on hold until J-Term.
The shuttle service ran every Saturday during J-Term. The route included stops at Hy-Vee, Walgreens, Wells Fargo and other grocery stores. SGA and ACES aim to continue the grocery shuttle service during the spring.
“The ideal plan would be [the shuttle service] keeps going throughout the year, each Saturday, even possibly more days, depending on the demand,” Benevuto said. “The issue is that the ACES vans are really bad and keep breaking down.”
Earlier this year, ACES experienced several breakdowns that prevented it from providing transportation services to students. Vans needing constant maintenance prevent ACES and SGA from running the grocery service. Benvenuto said he would like to see the shuttle service continue into the spring semester, but the SGA relies on the ACES vans to do so.
Bella Gilbert, a First-Year senator for SGA, said the shuttle service is a great opportunity for students to access groceries who may not otherwise have access to them.
“I think it’s going to have a good impact, especially on international students who don’t have cars,” Gilbert said. “It will be great for them to be able to get healthy options, and I know that was a big issue, so that’s why we wanted to do something like this.”
The vice president of SGA, Brayden Atkisson, said that he and Sarah Marrs, president of SGA, thought of the free grocery shuttle during their student government campaign last year.
“We wanted to talk to people and see what was [going to] be needed by the student government in the upcoming year,” Atkisson said. “A lot of what we were hearing was the dining hall doesn’t have the greatest options, but then also accessibility issues to things like medications.”
Atkisson said he took into account students’ needs when planning the shuttle service route. He planned for the shuttle to go to grocery stores, pharmacies and banks to ensure students could access these essential services. Atkisson also said that students using the service live on campus, so ACES went directly to the residence halls to pick them up.
The Quad Cities Metro bus has pick-up spots around campus, but it does not consistently stop at Augustana. According to the Metro schedule, this stop may be skipped depending on Rock Island school schedules. The grocery shuttle’s route features more specific stops, unlike the bus, which has more generalized drop-off locations.
“I think ACES is a really great tool that we have, and if students keep showing up to support it and take advantage of the service, I think it can definitely keep growing,” Atkisson said.
