College Food Pantry, which aims to help "address food insecurity among college students of all ages and backgrounds," opens this afternoon at the Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish on Avenue B and Ninth Street (pictured above).Here's more via their website:
The College Student Pantry is a food pantry program providing groceries for any college or graduate student who needs them, regardless of financial situation or institutional affiliation. The idea for the pantry arose out of a recognition among students at NYU and the New School that student food insecurity is a significant and growing problem in New York.
Students need to make an appointment for pickup. (Walk ups are OK too.) Moving forward, the service is available for students on the first and third Wednesdays of the month between 3 and 5 p.m.
The Pantry is in partnership with Trinity's Services and Food for the Homeless (SAFH) and PRiSM Progressive Student Ministry
The idea came from talking with community members and student activists who wanted to do something to address the needs of their fellow classmates. At NYU, more than 20 percent of students reported financial hardship affording food in 2018; at CUNY, 48 percent of students surveyed in 2019 had been food insecure in the past 30 days.
"I know it seems like a rite of passage to live off of ramen noodles, but we aren’t here to romanticize that kind of experience," an SAFH rep tells me. "The reality is that living off of ramen noodles and dollar pizza slices is not healthy. When your cupboards are bare and you skip meals to make your paycheck or student loan last, it’s not a good thing. Student food insecurity is a widespread issue, but the romanization of 'being young and poor' makes it an often obscured one."
