Food Pantries
What you learned about food pantries: What needs are they filling? What socio-economic factors contribute to this need? How do they work? What makes for a successful pantry?
As tuition rises students are left not only in college debt, but also struggling to find their next meal. College food pantries are a very recent implementation, but thankfully more and more colleges are recognizing the vital need for them. The way a food pantry works is that the school organizes people to first collect the food, this is through donation or collaboration with food companies. Then, there are arranged hours for students to come to the food pantry and take what they need for them and their household. Many food pantries go beyond just finding students meals, and coordinate health insurance and aid with school supplies. A successful food pantry is one that is self-sustaining, this means each person plays a part to create the whole. Other schools have gone as far as letting students “donate swipes” by creating a Facebook page in which students with left over money on their meal plans are able to buy low income students meals. The biggest importance for a food pantry is respect and empathy, understanding that the student sitting next to you may not know where to get their next meal is vital and making the system work.
What you learned about working with people: What might be important to keep in mind? What do you make of your role as a researcher/designer as you move forward with applying service design research methods in this project?
Working with people can already be a strenuous task, working with people of low income and poverty makes it even more complicated. Being able to connect and communicate with the people around you is vital when running a food pantry, as you need to ask what their needs are and not just assume. As a researcher and designer I am capable of making food pantries, and specifically The New School’s even more productive and useful for students in need. Whether this is figuring out a way for them to store perishable items, or increasing the hours for greater accessibility, I can find a way to better the service design of the food pantry.
Questions you have about any component of a food pantry: For each question, what information led you to ask this question?
I am very curious about who is providing the food and who is working to run the food pantries. Is it volunteer or are these people being paid? After reading about the New School’s food pantry and the people who organize it, it made me question why they decided to do it and if it is volunteer or not. Many colleges are just now starting to open food pantries, is this because they never thought of it before or because they are just now noticing the hungry students. After finding a source called “Food pantries pop up on college campuses for students struggling with hunger” I realized that the image of the “college student” had drastically changed in recent years and while most of us think of late night pizza binging, many think of how to afford the education while still eating daily. It is a difficult realization to think a student as equally smart and equally prepared for college may have to give up the opportunity due to lack in money resources to pay for tuition or food. Opening food pantries at colleges is to help the students already attending the school, but also for students looking to apply to know that they have an equal opportunity to thrive at the college. Normal students get distracted by online shopping, friends, and music, but to think of hunger being your biggest distraction while studying is something really unbelievable. The statistics I read about the hidden population of students who are hungry made me think what else we can do to help their situations, such as discounted meal plans or discounted dorm rooms. I have many questions and I look to either find or create answers.
Citation:
Lai, Jonathan. “Food Pantries Pop up on College Campuses for Students Struggling with Hunger.” Philly.com. N.p., 12 Feb. 2017. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.
