Questions by Camille Perlman
The report #RealCollege 2021: Basic Needs Insecurity During the Ongoing Pandemic released in March 2021 from the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice paints a compelling picture of the last academic semester of 2020. At that point, more than 267,000 Americans had died from the pandemic and the U.S. federal government had dispersed more than $6 billion in aid through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. At the same time, many students continued to struggle with housing and food insecurity. Out of the almost 200,000 students surveyed, 39% at two-year institutions were food insecure and 48% were housing insecure; the numbers were 29% and 14%, respectively, at four-year institutions.
Some may feel they don’t know where to start to support students who are food and housing insecure. And certainly the pandemic added some challenges. However, there are ways to make strides in this effort. The experts gathered here share their steps to success and explain how their campuses got started: Marcy Stidum is the founding director of Kennesaw State University’s (KSU) CARE Services; Heather Bennett Williams is the assistant director for leadership and civic engagement for the department of student life at Dalton State College; Alicia Nelson is the director of wellness services for the Student Health and Counseling Center at California State University, Fresno; Anabel Chavva is program coordinator for Hope Scholars at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV); and Janna M. Bernstein is assistant director for leadership and scholar development at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Marcy Stidum: In 2006 there was an incident when a student fainted in a classroom; she had not eaten for several days. In response, the KSU Student Health Services and the Staff Senate opened a campus pantry called Feed the Future.
Although historically KSU’s first homeless student was identified in the 1980s, the work of CARE Services really began with a student, Penelope, who was brought to our attention in 2011, making us aware of the homeless student population and the need for resources to serve these students.
Heather Bennett Williams: After several people noticed that some students were struggling academically due to food insecurity, the university opened the Birdfeeder in January 2014 as a food bank for students living on campus. Employee Sherry Breitweiser saw that students needed food and began keeping small items such as cereal in her office. Janet Hayes, the administrative assistant in enrollment services, wanted to expand the effort. She knew she could get donations but could not run the food bank, so she contacted Natalie Bates, director of residence life at the time, and Jason Ramos, assistant director for residence life, to discuss options to help provide food for residential students. The result was the Birdfeeder.
The Birdfeeder was relocated to the Pope Student Center in October 2016 after the center was renovated, and the pantry was made available to any currently enrolled Dalton State student. During the 2016-17 academic year, the Birdfeeder moved under the direction of Student Life, and processes and procedures were updated to make the pantry more efficient, sustainable, and student-led.
Alicia Nelson: In 2014, a Fresno State faculty member shared with campus leadership some initial research on food insecurity among Fresno State students. This research demonstrated a need, and in November 2014 the Student Cupboard, a free food and hygiene pantry, opened on our campus for all currently enrolled students.
Anabel Chavva and Janna M. Bernstein: The program started with a simple question, “Where do students go on UNLV’s campus if they are struggling with issues of homelessness?” Many offices on campus could help support these students in need, but there was no coordinated effort, and the cost of housing made it difficult for many students to attend the university. Hence, the UNLV HOPE Scholars Program was born. Moreover, Las Vegas has some of the highest rates of unaccompanied homeless youth on the streets.
Stidum: During the 2011-12 academic year, 25 homeless students were identified and provided with supportive services. Factors contributing to students becoming homeless ranged from eviction due to lack of financial resources, parental death, domestic violence, support systems rejecting their sexual identity/orientation, displacement of veterans, and so forth. After students continued to be identified as homeless and the number of referrals began to increase, KSU’s Counseling and Psychological Services established the Campus
Awareness, Resource & Empowerment (CARE) Services in May 2013. As a result of a generous donation, in the summer of 2014 CARE Services was able to establish a foundation account to which donors could contribute in order to support the students it served. In September 2014, the Feed the Future pantry was consolidated under the direction of CARE Services to provide a one-stop-shop for serving students with insecurities related to basic needs. In July 2018, CARE Services was funded with an operational and personnel budget, establishing it as a stand-alone KSU Student Affairs department.
First and foremost, the support of upper-level university administration was needed in order to develop the services and expand resources. Next, relationships were built with Housing and Residence Life, the Office of Financial Aid, and University Development in order to begin serving students more intentionally and to begin the process of raising funds to support the efforts of CARE. As the program continued to gain momentum, relationships and partnerships were created with Campus Services, formerly Auxiliary Services, as well as with off-campus hotels for emergency housing. Additionally, KSU partnered with the Atlanta Community Food Bank (ACFB) in order to expand campus pantry options.
Over time, we have continued to network and build relationships with partner departments on and off campus, including a recent partnership with the Kroger Foundation to expand the campus pantries further; continued work with the Atlanta Community Food Bank and now Goodr (which organizes the distribution of surplus food) to provide perishable food within the pantries; and key partnerships with Central Receiving and Distribution to facilitate large-scale donations from community agencies, Kimberly-Clark to provide household items within the pantry, and GEODIS/Post Cereal for large-scale donations within the pantry, to name a few.
Williams: The program officially started in 2014. Key players were the administrative assistant for enrollment service and residential life staff. In addition, they relied heavily on community churches and Dalton State employees to stock the space. Employees and community organizations are still key in sponsoring the operations of the food pantry. In March 2018, the Dalton State Foundation agreed to sponsor the Birdfeeder. This partnership allowed the pantry to become a partner agency with the Chattanooga Area Food Bank. The staff has recently been trained to assist with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applications as well. This will be a new on-campus resource for the fall of 2021.
Nelson: The Food Security Project was initiated in November 2014 by the campus president and the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. The program is now under Wellness Services, which is a department within the Student Health and Counseling Center. We partner with our local food bank to purchase items at a discounted rate. The Food Security Project is primarily funded by donation, though the university does support one full-time staff position.
Chavva and Bernstein: The UNLV HOPE Scholars Program was established in 2016 as a partnership between the Clark County School District Title I HOPE Program, Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth (NPHY), and UNLV Division of Student Affairs. In 2018, the program moved to the Office of Service Learning and Leadership, and a full-time staff member was hired in addition to two other staff members within the office with dedicated time in their position. There are also many departments on campus that collaborate with the program to help support the students: financial aid, admissions, TRIO Student Support Services, the bookstore, the Division of Student Affairs, and many more. Off campus we worked with the Clark County School District and the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth. Many donor meetings are also held in order to explain the program’s goals.
Stidum: Students mainly find KSU CARES through our outreach events, advertising campaigns on campus, and referrals. Our outreach events generally consist of sharing free food and information about our services to students passing by on both campuses. Advertising campaigns work in a variety of ways, from bold signage to advertisements on our Owl TV network. We have recently increased our efforts to reach KSU faculty and staff who may interact with students experiencing homelessness and/or food insecurity. These faculty and staff can refer students to KSU CARES and inform them of our services. Some students may also be referred to KSU CARES by our Emergency Assistance program, which is another branch of the CARE Services office.
Students within our ASCEND program generally find us while they are still in high school. We connect with these students through other adults in their life, such as school social workers, homeless liaisons, and/or Division of Family and Children’s Services case managers, as well as other KSU offices that may be familiar with our services and refer students who have experienced homelessness and the foster care system during their K-12 years. We are currently working on improving our recruitment campaign for the ASCEND program, with the goal of reaching more students who are already coming to KSU but may not be aware of our services. This includes conducting a campus-wide survey; sending outreach emails to community education partners (such as school social workers, homeless liaisons, and guidance counselors); partnering with admissions to add self-identifying questions on undergraduate applications and provide application fee waivers; partnering with orientation to add self-identifying questions on registration and/or outreach during sessions; and partnering with Financial Aid to send an outreach letter to accepted students.
Williams: No application is needed. During their first visit, we set up a profile for students in PantrySoft™, a software program that helps food banks keep track of their clients. After that, we update their profile once per academic year. We have marketing across campus and also ask employees to make referrals as needed. Our campus CARE team is a huge referral source.
Nelson: The program and services are promoted at new student orientation, tabling events throughout the academic year, and social media. Word of mouth by students is also a positive way for students to find out about the resources.
Chavva and Bernstein: We primarily work with our two closest community partners: Clark County School District and Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth. They help to identify students who qualify for the scholarship, working with us to distribute the applications. We hope to spread the message about this program by working more closely with the various high school counselors and social workers.
Stidum: The first real sign of success was when the campus pantry and Homelessness Awareness Week were moved under our umbrella. Because of these moves, CARE became a single point of contact for students experiencing homelessness, food insecurity, or the foster care system. More recently, we have measured our success by the development and implementation of our ASCEND program and Living-Learning Village, which showed not only the significant growth of our program’s services, but also the success of the collaboration efforts between our office and the greater campus and state-wide communities.
Williams: Students were thanking staff for their support and sharing stories about how it helped them through a difficult time. We learned more about their needs and stories and were able to add more resources as the pantry has grown.
Nelson: During the first month the Student Cupboard was open, we served more than 200 students.
Chavva and Bernstein: Our first graduate (Spring 2020) completed her degree in four years compared to the six-year graduation rate of the larger UNLV student body. We had two more graduates during Spring 2021!
Stidum: Our programs are maintained through strong relationships with our campus and community partners and supporters as well as intentional and strategic fundraising. The vast majority of our office and all activities that we host operate because of the donations and grants that we have received. For example, our pantry is entirely run based on donated items and funds. Programmatically, we have connections with campus and community partners such as KSU housing, financial aid, and admissions, who help us to serve our students more efficiently. For example, our ASCEND program has a Living-Learning Village, the result of our partnership with KSU Housing and Residence Life, which also allows us to have four emergency apartments that we can use to house case management clients who may be experiencing homelessness. This is but one small example of the many connections we have with different offices across campus. To maintain these relationships, we continue to connect with any campus partner who may be interested in helping students who are experiencing homelessness and/or food insecurity.
Williams: Federal work-study eligible students staff the pantry. All other funding comes from donors. Our Foundation is a huge supporter and advocate. We also keep close connections to our donors and constantly share success stories and data to help tell our story and show impact.
Chavva and Bernstein: The program still relies heavily on donations. The conversation and networking are always surrounding which grants would be a good fit and trying our best to get those grants. The ideal situation would be to one day be endowed! In addition, we established an advisory board that includes donors, faculty, staff, alumni, and current students working together to ensure that we are creating the best possible program at UNLV.
Stidum: In our future, we plan to expand the services that we are currently offering by continuing to expand the holistic support system for students who may be experiencing homelessness and/or food insecurity. These future plans include, but are not limited to, expanding our pantry options to include perishable food items; expanding our ASCEND program to more students as well as offering more programming such as an alternative spring break and education abroad trip/scholarships; creating a KSU CARES mentoring program where students can be paired with a mentor to guide them through college and support them after their graduation; and expanding the ASCEND Living-Learning Village to offer a safe place to live to students who have experienced homelessness and/or the foster care system. Our programs at CARE Services are only growing from here, as we work hard to inform our work with our students’ needs. Within the last few years, these needs have changed and grown, and we can only imagine what services we will seek to provide them with in the future.
Williams: We have been piloting a garden program over the past one and a half years and plan to launch a campus garden club to sustain the maintenance and harvesting of the produce, which adds fresh options to our pantry. Post-COVID, we also plan to launch a life skills series to help with personal development and money management. In the summer of 2020, we removed some walls in the student center to expand the pantry space to include our existing professional clothing closet. The hope behind this change was to open the space up for multiple purposes and to alleviate some of the stigmas attached to housing and food insecurity. Now students use the space to access food, professional clothing, referrals to other services, and, soon, the life skills workshops.
Chavva and Bernstein: One day we hope to be able to solidify a bridge program with our local community college so that homeless youth at the community college could spend their first two years there and then transfer into our university. In addition, we would like to continue to expand our program at the university to be able to support as many unaccompanied homeless youth as possible.
