Committee on Food Insecurity Monthly Report

• The following hours have been established for the Queensborough Food Pantry for Fall, 2019:

MONDAY, 10-11 AM; 12.45-1.45 PM; 5-6 PM

TUESDAY, 1-2 PM

WEDNESDAY, 11-Noon; 2-3 PM

THURSDAY, 2.30-3.30; 3.30-4.30; 5-6 PM

Appointments may be scheduled at other times by emailing Emily S. Tai, Chair, Committee on Food Insecurity, [email protected]

Committee Activities

• The newly constituted Committee on Food Insecurity met once during the month of August (Wednesday, August 28, 2019); and once during the month of September (Monday, September 23, 2019). 
• While (as per the annual report of the Committee for 2018-2019) a transfer of responsibility for the Food Pantry to Queensborough’s Single Stop Office is not on the immediate horizon, the members of the Committee on Food Insecurity wish to thank Vice-President of Student Affairs Dr. Brian Kerr; Vice-President of Institutional Advancement Rosemary Zins, and Ms. Ronnie Weprin, of Queensborough’s Office of Institutional Advancement, for their support in soliciting and maintaining funding for the Food Pantry from the Petrie Foundation, other private foundations, and the Queensborough Community College Fund.   To facilitate partnership with these offices, Vice-President Kerr has been named the committee’s Administrative liaison for 2019-2020.
• The Committee would also like to thank last year’s Administrative liaison, Vice-President Sherri Newcomb; Director of Public Safety Mr. John Triolo; and Mr. Emil V. Parrinello for assisting members of the Committee and external partners Professor Fung-Shelley King (CUNYStart), and Dr. Lana Zinger (Department of Health, Physical Education, and Dance) with card-swipe access to the Queensborough Food Pantry.
• Vice-President Kerr’s office will be working with Single Stop to administer $10 disbursements which will be applied to the tigercards of needy students upon application to Single Stop.  This program will be jointly funded by a grant from the Petrie Foundation and money allocated to CUNY in the New York City budget to address food insecurity at CUNY.
• Dr. Amy Traver has been engaged in outreach to Temple University's Hope Center to find out more information on: 1) best practices related to student privacy and food pantry use, and 2) ways that our food pantry might best access food.   Dr. Traver recommended several resources that she found in the course of this research:

The Hope Lab Guide and Toolkit Website which contains not only suggestions for raising awareness about Food Insecurity on campus, but useful position papers on such issues as the expansion of SNAP benefits for college students

Sarah Goldrick-Rab, Distributing Emergency Aid to College Students: Recommendations and Sample Distribution Protocol

College and University Food Bank Alliance

Running a Campus Food Pantry

• The Pantry is also in receipt of flyers concerning the application process for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) made available through a joint initiative between CUNY and the City of New York.
• Dr. Lana Zinger’s classes in Health and Nutrition will be engaged in a service-learning project that will support the Pantry in three ways: Food Safety: members of the class review Food Pantry contents and remove expired food; Campus Events: A film on Food Insecurity will be shown as a student event, with co-sponsorship from the Lambda Sigma Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, on November 11, 2019; Raising Nutritional Awareness: members of Dr. Zinger’s class will be authoring a cookbook for student colleagues who use the pantry, a project that has proved helpful and enormously popular in the past.
• Members of the Lambda Sigma Chapter have also been active in helping to unpack food and bring food donations from drop—off bins in Schmeller Library and the Department of Biology to the Food Pantry (see recognized students below).
• Father Edward Doran will be partnering with the Lambda Sigma Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa to host a “Fruit and Study” event a the Newman Center on Wednesday, December 5, 2019
• At our last meeting, Mr. Jonathan Chin, of Share by Teaching, discussed a cellular telephone application that alerts student to food distribution on campus, including unused meal plans, and a Real-Time Map. He also described efforts underway to create “Food Pantry Vending Machines” that would be accessible to students without the necessity of faculty being present.
• The Queensborough Food Pantry would like to grateful acknowledge the following donors and students who have either donated food to the Food Pantry in September, 2019, or assisted with the transport and unpacking of food:

• Thanks:

Vice-President of Student Affairs, Dr. Brian Kerr

Vice-President of Institutional Advancement, Ms. Rosemary Zins

Ms. Ronnie Weprin

Mr. Brian Harper and the staff of the Queensborough Mailroom

Ms. Maryann Cuevas and the staff of the Central Receiving Office

Chair Nidhi Gadura and the faculty and staff of  Department of Biology and Geological Sciences

Dr. Mirna Lekic (Department of Music)

Dr. Fung-Shelley King and the faculty and staff of CUNYStart

Ms. Gisela Rivera

Mr. Raymond Volel

Ms. Debra Rosenwasser

Dr. Paris Svoronos and the members of the Chemistry Club

Dr. Jun Shin and the Members of Korean Student Association

Ms. Victoria O’Shea and the members of the ASAP Club

Dr. Trikartikaningsih Byas and the members of the Muslim Student Association

Director Jeannie Galvin and the Faculty of Schmeller Library

Mr. Jonathan Chin

An Anonymous Donor

And the following amazing students:

Ms. Jacquelin Apostolo (Vice-President of Part-Time Students, Queensborough Student Association)

Ms. Billung Chen (Lambda Sigma President. Phi Theta Kappa)

Ms. Vayola Florus (Lambda Sigma Vice-President, Phi Theta Kappa)

Mr. Andrew Muller

Mr. Alejandro Ramirez

Ms. Hannah Toussaint

A special thanks, as well, to the faculty members of the Food Insecurity Committee: Dr. Kathleen Alves (Secretary); Professor Jun Shin; Professor Ashlee Klepper; Dr. Dorith Brodbar; Dr. Amy Traver; Dr. Christopher Roblodowski; Dr. Jonathan Cornick (Steering Committee Designee)

Respectfully submitted,

Emily S. Tai

Chair, Committee on Food Insecurity