Scholars: Student Hunger, Homelessness Underrecognized

Of all the students who visited the food pantry at Montgomery College in recent times, one that stood out for pantry worker and honors student Elizabeth Zabala is the young man who came to get something to eat for a specific assignment.

He had been taking a course called Nutrition 101, Zabala said, and needed to eat in order to do a diet analysis for the class.

“He didn’t have enough money to buy food to do that assignment,” Zabala recalled. “I really admired him for the dedication to his schoolwork because he was still going to class. You could tell how weak he was because he wasn’t eating enough.”

Before long, the student started to visit the food pantry every day. However, restrictions prevent the food pantry from helping an individual student on a daily basis.

“We had to tell him that and let him know about resources outside of the college,” Zabala said.

Zabala shared the anecdote Wednesday as a guest speaker at The George Washington University during a town hall that focused on college student hunger and homelessness.

It was one of several such stories offered up in conjunction with the release of a new report titled “Hungry and Homeless in College: Results from a National Study of Basic Needs Insecurity in Higher Education.”