NO MORE PANTRIES! Time for Community Resource Centers to be Developed on ALL Campuses

 Why Utilize a Campus Community Resource Center Model?

Beginning in 2017, we began researching models for empowering students that would include dealing with food insecurity but not limit itself to that one barrier to success. Two successful operating models were tracked down and visited, one called Lula Bell’s Resource Center at Davidson College and the other called Community Food Centres Canada. In both cases, it became clear that the stigma associated with hunger is real and needs to be strategically planned against its reinforcement in operational design. With these sources and principles, we spent much of 2018 developing a model that would be suitable to a college campus, particularly a public institution with its significant numbers of commuters. This model was then brought to life through funding from Robert Wood Johnson in 2018 as a seed grant and was piloted at an urban public university.

The one-year pilot served to expand the mission of a traditional food pantry and implement a Community Center model of food and resource touchpoints. By ‘touchpoints’ we mean the situations where clients, in this case university students on behalf of their families, decide to access nutrition and knowledge in a stigma-free and welcoming environment. The term ‘campus resource (or) community center’ is used to specifically focus on a diversity, equity and inclusion lens whereby placing community at the center is not only about access to nutrition and knowledge but also about creating an environment where ALL people feel welcome, equal and empowered to determine their own path to success. Student need, and its potential association with stigma, is reversed in the recommended tagline, “In this community, we are ALL needed” 

The Campus Resource Center mission is, therefore, to link students with resources that empower and enhance self-determined success. The center strives to provide equal access to such resources that are often taken for granted by those who benefit without asking. These areas of comprehensive resource availability include food and housing insecurity, supports for children and parents, nutrition and hygiene, professional clothing, mental health counseling, financial literacy, supporting diversity, and rights of the undocumented, and more. Students who are food insecure tend to face an array of obstacles limiting their self-determined ability to succeed and, therefore, by addressing all issues under one welcoming roof at the center, we increase the likelihood of success overall.

The approach encompasses five main areas within the Campus Resource Center:

•                     To ensure equal access and comprehensive awareness of resources and offices in support of students, especially the food pantry, as well as those resources made available

•                     To eliminate the barrier to self-determined success that food insecurity creates

•                     To connect all students who wish to tackle issues of stress and trauma with those trained in mental health counseling

•                     To ensure opportunities provided to students based on merit can be availed of through the free provisions of professional clothing, thereby eliminating the barrier of financial stress of having to buy professional clothing for internships and interviews

•                     To operate a welcoming, comfortable, stigma-free, event-packed Community Center for all students based on the resources that empower students’ success

Like it? Let’s build them together – for the future! Saul