By Iheb Klai | Assistant Editor
MWCC recently opened its new Food for Though Campus Pantry for students in need.
College and university administrators and leaders around the country are realizing that students are among the millions of Americans who experience food insecurity, or a lack of resources to obtain nutritional food. That is why the food pantry office was established at Mount Wachusett Community College, to help students struggling with issues like food insecurity and homelessness.
“We just opened it 3 weeks ago, it is a brand new initiative. We got a combination of support from the staff faculty, student and outside non-profit organization,” said Shelly Nicholson, director of the Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement.
The main purpose is giving out snacks, prepackaged meals and other food items to students in need and it is located in the Gardner campus, room 192. “All donations we have here coming from outside people but mostly people from the Mount. Also, we got help from United Way, which is a non-profit organization and until now we have 30 students signed up so far,” said Jana Murphy, Southern New England Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA.
In the United States, 33,000 students at 70 community colleges in 24 states are struggling with food insecurity and homelessness. This indicates that two out of three community college students are food insecure according to The Wisconsin Hope Lab.
To sustain it, the food pantry in MWCC is working through donations, both in-kind and monetary, also with fundraising efforts. It has also partnership with Gardner CAC, which is a non-profit covering food needs for students living in Westminster, Templeton, Ashburnham and Hubbardston.
“Food donations have always been an important part of our student support network – even before the Food Pantry. MWCC has hosted Thanksgiving Meal drives, SGA food drives, condiment drives for veterans and other non-perishable food drives to support our students who are food insecure and local agencies that provide these services to our students. With the new Food Pantry, we are using these efforts to help them maintain a robust supply of products.” Jason Zelesky, dean of students at Mount Wachusett Community College.
The number of food pantries in college campuses is exploding, “there are other MA community colleges that have food pantries, and this is not an uncommon service for campuses that may have a high number of students who report being food insecure.” Zelesky said.
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