Colleges Set Up Pantries to Aid Hungry Students

LAKE WORTH — A single mother of four doesn’t just rely on Palm Beach State College to feed her mind. Jenie Hoben knows of one who relies on it to feed her family.

“Sometimes her kids come in and help her carry out boxes of food,” said Hoben, who directs the counseling center that oversees PBSC’s food bank for students on its Lake Worth campus.

The student has visited them just about every week since the food bank opened a year and a half ago.

“We’ve been doing food drives for local pantries, and we noticed that we have students that are hungry,” Hoben said, explaining why the school opened the food bank. “We came to realize the need was greater than we first thought.”

It isn’t just PBSC that sees hungry students, either. On-campus food banks have opened at college and universities nationwide — several of them in Florida — to meet the needs of students struggling to afford food.

“As long as there have been colleges, there have been people who can’t manage the cost of college,” said Clare Cady, an officer with the College and University Food Bank Alliance, a national online group co-founded by students at Michigan State and Oregon State. “Students are choosing between groceries and graduation.”

As of early July, there were 339 members with CUFBA, including food banks at Florida, Florida State, Central Florida and Florida International.

Cady believes several factors have combined to make buying food a struggle for more students. Many students are older and already have children, and they must balance work with attending class and earning degrees and professional certificates. At PBSC, for example, more than 48 percent of the student body is over age 22, according to smartclass.com, a website that tracks college and university data.

Paying for that education is expensive as well, and parents cannot always provide financial support.

“College costs have risen very sharply. Buying power has not,” said Cady, whose group advises schools on how to structure and manage their food banks. “There are a lot more families that may not be able to support their child like we expect them to.”

The problem many universities and colleges face is identifying who on their campus is hungry. To date, there has been no verified national study.

The Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that tracks food instability nationwide, says that 16 percent of Americans— or 1 in 6 — have difficulty buying food, which is at the lowest rate since it started tracking the data in 2008. Cady believes the number is higher for college students, especially in particular states. One study in California suggested as many as 40 percent of students have trouble feeding themselves.

College campus food pantries in Florida got attention in November 2015, when the State University Board of Governors made a formal push to put them at all 12 public universities. Last year, for example, FSU’s food bank saw 1,100 visits from 456 students. UF reported close to 4,000 visits, and UCF nearly 10,000.

In January, Florida Atlantic University launched its Beyond Food Program in partnership with the nonprofit Boca Helping Hands, a local food, medical and financial assistance program.

“It doesn’t function like other traditional pantry programs,” said Nori Carter, the executive director at FAU’s Weppner Center, which oversees the program. “Our purpose is to address the food-assistance needs, but also work with them in a holistic manner.”

Students work with a case manager who offers them career advice and counseling services as well as food. If the pantry on campus is unable to serve them, students often get referred to Boca Helping Hands, which serves hot meals six days a week and also hands out groceries.

“There are people coming here that we know are students at FAU,” said James Gavrilos, the executive director of Boca Helping Hands. “I credit FAU … for saying, ‘If we have hungry kids here, we’re going to do something about it.’”

Both programs also look to see if students are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the federal financial assistance that low-income households can use for groceries. People who try to get students into SNAP, however, often find that they don’t qualify.

SNAP policy requires that able-bodied adults without dependents between the ages of 18 and 49 either work or volunteer 20 hours a week in order to receive benefits.

“Taking classes doesn’t count as ‘work,’” Cady said. “Being a full-time student is a huge job, but it isn’t considered work. … You have people who are on food stamps and then lose that benefit when they go to college.”

Although programs for food assistance are growing — like that at PBSC, which plans to open up pantries on all of its satellite campus — the efforts are drops in a large bucket, Cady said.

“Giving someone a food box isn’t a sufficient intervention,” she said. “It’s the start of a sufficient intervention.” gcox@pbpost.com