Hungriness across college campuses

Alice Miller Nation, Director of the Franciscan Center for Social Concern, came

to St. Bonaventure University in the summer of 2018, witnessing hunger amongst college

students who were staying on campus for the summer. Miller Nation went to the store

with the students so they could pick out food that would last the whole weekend. This

social problem is often called food insecurity, which is defined as not having enough

food for a healthy life. “When a student doesn’t have their basic needs to stay healthy,

then studying and paying attention becomes harder for them. That leads the student to not

succeed in their classes throughout the semester,” says Miller Nation.

Miller investigated whether or not food insecurity is a problem at St. Bonaventure

University or a nationwide issue. She figured out it's an issue when students live off-

campus or in one of the university apartments at St. Bonaventure. “Food insecurity is not

an issue when students live on campus. It's an issue when students live off-campus or in

one of the university apartments to save money and don’t have a meal plan. Most

students feel like they will figure it out later, which some students may face that barrier,”

according to Miller Nation.

Miller Nation began to research and understand that there is a significant number

of students who have food insecurities during the school year. According to Affordable

Colleges Online, “a 2018 study found that 36% of college students experience hunger and

lack stable housing. Add in the fact that tuition rates are going up while financial aid is

going down, and it’s obvious that most college students and their families are feeling a
very tight financial squeeze.” Eventually, Miller Nation went to talk to Fr. Francis Di

Spign, who is the Executive Director of University Ministries. She told him that

Bonaventure students that were staying in the summer would come to the McGinley-

Carney Center for Franciscan Ministry kitchen at night to cook food. Fr. Francis then told

Miller to find out more information among other faculty to see if they think food

insecurity is a problem in the Bonaventure on campus.

Margaret Young, who is the Higher Education Opportunity Program Associate

Director, was one of the first members of the Bonaventure community that Miller got to

know on campus and talked about food insecurity. As Miller Nation and Young’s

conversations grew over time, Miller Nation got to understand some of the food

insecurities that the Higher Education Opportunity Program students face during the

semester. The HEOP program allows potential students who want to go to college but

cannot afford it to have an opportunity to go to school. Most students attending the

university and who are in HEOP do not have the extra resources to pay for non-dining

hall food.

According to Young, “Many of our students have a stipend, which is a form of

allowance for the semester that our students use to buy groceries, while they live in one

of the university apartments during the year. That may or may not last them. When

students are staying on campus for short breaks like Thanksgiving, what are they doing

for food?”

When Miller Nation discovered HEOP students were struggling to get access to

food, she needed to address it again with Fr. Francis. “When she came back to me with

online data and examples of students and potentially more at Bonaventure that don’t have
enough access to food, Miller Nation explained that the problem starts when students

live in the university apartments or off-campus during the semester. We had to do some

service for students to be feed,” said Fr. Francis.

Throughout the 2018-2019 academic year, Miller Nation and Fr. Francis planned

ways to provide food to students in the form of a soup kitchen. Miller Nation and Fr.

Francis brought in food to the kitchen and told students by word of mouth about the

“stopgap food pantry’ in the McGinley-Carney Center for Franciscan Ministry kitchen,

which would allow students to bring a can or to take a can and for students to leave

leftovers from their dinner the previous night.

Throughout the year, the “food gap pantry” was available for all students. But it

wasn’t as formal as Miller Nation wanted it to be. Then in February 2019, Miller began to

reach out to faculty and students by email, to find out who might be interested in being

part of a task force to help students with their food insecurity and potentially raise

awareness with other faculty and students. That email chain included Margaret Young,

Katie O’Brien, Grace Seeley, and others as well.

Katie O’Brien, Vice President for Student Affairs said, “in our first few meetings,

we were learning about food insecurity on college campuses across the country and how

can we as a committee implement that in Bonaventure? Then we started to look at other

schools’ food pantries to get an idea. At the same time, the Governor of New York State

passed a law that helped solve the problem of food insecurity across New York state”

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in January 2019 that every

public and private university in New York State is mandated to have a food pantry or

some form of free access to food by the end of the fall semester 2019. “Hunger should
never be a barrier for those seeking to achieve their dreams of a higher education,” said

Governor Cuomo.

“What we did was look at some of the public New York State college food

pantries and see the ways the institution implemented their food pantry so that we could

do it possible here in St. Bonaventure University,” said Grace Seeley, co-coordinator of

the food pantry.

Alice Miller Nation was a Catholic chaplain at Rochester Institute of Technology,

where they had a Foodshare program that opened on April 30th, 2015. This Foodshare

Center welcomed everybody in the RIT community to donate non-perishable items,

swipe for food items or even grab some food items. Students could only take five items

per visit. “I went back to RIT to look at how the school created and ran their food pantry,

so we could do it here at St. Bonaventure University,” said Miller Nation.

Throughout the academic year, Miller Nation’s idea of the “stopgap pantry’ that

took place in the kitchen of the university ministries building became more organized

throughout the summer and into the fall of 2019. The food pantry committee received

news over the summer that the University had a space in the ministries building where

the committee could operate its food pantry.

In the Fall semester of 2019, Seeley and a few other students began to organize

the food pantry before the mid-term break. All through September, the committee

scattered donation boxes across campus for students or faculty to donate to the up-

coming food pantry on campus. “It was the last week of September during Francis week,

where Miller teamed up with the Quick Center of the Arts, that managed to have an artist

from Buffalo, New York to come to Bonaventure to share his artwork on the homeless
and sold some of his paintings. Towards the end of the show, Alice Miller Nation, who

was one of the coordinators of the event, spoke up about what the university is planning

to do for the food pantry on campus and after she spoke, someone came up and asked if

they could donate a refrigerator for the up-coming food pantry.

On October 2, 2019, Alice Miller Nation and the food insecurity committee

officially opened the food pantry room in the McGinley-Carney Center for Franciscan

Ministry on St. Bonaventure University’s campus. All students, faculty, and staff are

welcome to grab food items that they need without feeling any guilt. The pantry is open

for all people in the Bonaventure community throughout the year.