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Lone Star College - North Harris opened their new food bank, CAT-5 Cupboard, on Sept. 25 to current students in an effort to alleviate food insecurity.
Photo: Courtesy Of Lone Star College - North HarrisLone Star College - North Harris opened their new food bank, CAT-5 Cupboard, on Sept. 25 to current students in an effort to alleviate food insecurity.
Lone Star College - North Harris opened their new food bank, CAT-5 Cupboard, on Sept. 25 to current students in an effort to alleviate food insecurity.
Lone Star College - North Harris opened their new food bank, CAT-5 Cupboard, on Sept. 25 to current students in an effort to alleviate food insecurity.
Food insecurity in college has become a problem, but students at Lone Star College-North Harris campus are working to alleviate this stress from their fellow classmates.
Sept. 25 served as the opening of “CAT-5 Cupboard,” a food pantry free and available once a week to current Lone Star students by showing their student ID. The CAT-5 Cupboard is similar to the Lone Star College - East Aldine campus food pantry, according to Joe Lengfeller, communications manager for Lone Star College - North Harris.
The 2016 Hunger on Campus report found that food insecurity occurs at both two-year and four-year institutions - 25 percent of community college students qualify as having very low food security while 20 percent qualify at four-year schools.
Lengfeller said they realized this had been a problem for their students for a few years now but everything fell into place this school year to open the pantry as a resource. Although the school would normally wait to begin a new program until the start of a new semester, they wanted to open this pantry as soon as possible in order to help student success.
“It's just the luck of the draw that all the resources fell into place,” Lengfeller said. “We did not have to wait until the beginning of the new year or new semester we had the ability to start now right in September so we did.”
About 70% of students report having a part-time job and 30% have a full-time job according to the Spring 2018 statistics. According to the 2016 Hunger on Campus report, food insecurity is still prevalent in students who have jobs — 56% report experiencing food insecurity with a paying job and of those students, 38% worked 20 or more hours a week.
“The college identified food insecurity as one of the factors that can impact students’ success,” said Food Pantry Committee Co-Chair Alana Aleman in a press release. “The food pantry is our way of ‘going the extra mile’ to address their needs and help ensure our students graduate.”
Funding for the pantry came from the college and donations from a canned food drive were collected from faculty and staff donations. Although students face a variety of issues outside of the classroom that can impact their education, Lengfeller said this is one of the holistic ways they are approaching methods to improve students’ lives.
“Students have issues that impact their world that hinder their ability to succeed in class,” Lengfellner said. “So we started looking at a holistic method to find a way to help students succeed in school.”
The food pantry is open from 2:30 - 5 p.m. from Monday to Thursday every week in the Academic Building, room 108. Faculty, staff and student volunteers will operate CAT-5 Cupboard. The pantry is seeking donations of non-perishable foods, personal hygiene items, baby food and baby diapers which can be dropped off at any time during regular operating hours.
For more information about the pantry, donating, or volunteering, email NH-CAT5CUPBOARD@lonestar.edu.
savannah.mehrtens@chron.com
