Colleges open food pantries for students in need

(AP) — Mikaylah Clair-Pittman, 20, pulled a wheel of brie cheese from a refrigerator in a small room tucked into a back wing at Norwalk Community College.

Colleges and universities from Purdue to South Florida to Penn State now offer pantries where students who might otherwise go hungry can stock up on healthy food.

Open five days a week, the NCC pantry is being discovered by a growing number of students who can visit twice a month to stock up on groceries and daily for a grab-and-go snack of fruit or a granola bar.

Helping curb food insecurity among college students is a growing effort, particularly as more people than ever are pushed to seek a college education, the cost of attending rises and incomes remain flat.

"Hungry to Learn," a 2015 survey of 10 community colleges across the country, co-authored by Goldrick-Rab, found one in five students experience some level of food insecurity and 13 percent are homeless.

McAvoy estimates that the pantry's reach is about 600 people, when family members who benefit from food brought home are counted.

All of the food at the pantry is donated, as was the refrigerator— donated by the college's biology department —and the freezer, a Craigslist find.

Unlike traditional food pantries, the college campus pantry does not qualify for federal grants that require the service be open to all, not just students.

A nutrition student uses pantry donations to create homemade trail mixes for the grab and go basket.

What Norwalk has learned is being shared with other college campuses interested in starting pantries, including Tunxis, Three Rivers and Middlesex Community Colleges.