Community Colleges Take Center Stage in the Fight Against Campus Hunger

"Food needs to actually stay right on campus because the students are hungry and the food can go into their food pantry or a no-pay cafe," says Regina Harmon, Food Recovery Network CEO. "So, some [volunteers] decide to keep the food right on campus to address student food insecurity."

Statistics show that community college students face financial and life circumstances that many four-year, traditional college students don’t. Community colleges receive $8,800 less per student than larger institutions, which widens the gap and weighs heavily on their success. One major disparity is food insecurity for the forty percent – 7.1 million – of the nation’s college enrollment is the community college population.

For more than 15 years, the FRN, a national nonprofit, has worked in college communities to assist and train faculty and staff on helping to decrease food insecurity and waste. The FRN has stepped in to help curve these issues for more than 200 colleges and universities in their network.

According to the Hope Center at Temple University, numbers show that hunger and food insecurity is higher – 23.4% – compared to other schools. There are numerous ways and groups that aid students but the large-scale numbers are hard to combat with just one organization. The nearly $9,000 per student that’s denied for community colleges amounts to a staggering $78 billion national funding gap.

Previously, FRN focused on four-year institutions, however, after reviewing a data-driven analysis showed that communities where community colleges are historically located are typically under-resourced. They are often located are rural communities where residents don’t have access or funding for higher education or healthy food options.

Harmon shares that the research into helping colleges showed staggering numbers in how many students and their families were suffering from hunger. “We saw that community colleges are in closer proximity to communities that are experiencing hunger at a higher rate, than therefore your counterparts,” she recalls. “That was a very important data decision that we saw when we were thinking, if we're going to do food recovery, when we do food recovery, where are we going to have the biggest impact? When we worked alongside community colleges, we had a better impact to feed more people who are experiencing hunger.”

Common misconceptions include that those who struggle feeding their families are unemployed, homeless, squander money or are distrustful. Many recipients of food assistance do work, however, at lower wages that render them below the poverty line. Harmon says the high cost of living is one of many reasons why food can become a luxury when the decision to pay mortgages and rent takes precedence.