{"id":28540,"date":"2020-03-12T11:48:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T16:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=28540"},"modified":"2020-03-24T08:30:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T13:30:46","slug":"fighting-food-insecurity-the-sinclair-food-pantry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2020\/03\/12\/fighting-food-insecurity-the-sinclair-food-pantry\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Food Insecurity: The Sinclair Food Pantry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Students facing food insecurity, defined as the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food in a socially acceptable manner, are more prevalent in the U.S. than one might think. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fall 2018 survey conducted by the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice<\/a> found that out of 86,000 students from 123 different institutions, over 60% faced food or housing insecurity. This impedes a student\u2019s ability to do well in their coursework and several colleges nationwide are working to solve the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among them is Sinclair Community College, which currently has three distinct initiatives to address this problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dayton Foodbank<\/a> partners with the college and brings their mobile food pantry to campus once a month, which provides access to perishable items such as vegetables, milk or produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lunchtime Hunger program<\/a> is a service that started as a student initiative and is now maintained by the dietetics and social work clubs. They fundraise on campus to buy supplies to offer a free lunch to students in need, such as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a piece of fruit and a granola bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newest resource that was established this spring semester is the Sinclair Food Pantry, located in Building 13, room 426. It is open twice a month and provides Sinclair students non-perishable goods in a discreet environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
One of the aisles, featuring starchy foods. (Photo by Ayzha Middlebrooks)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe end-goal of all these initiatives is to help address food insecurity, and they all do it in a different way and through a different mechanism,\u201d Dr. Matt Massie, Manager of Student and Community Engagement, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinclair\u2019s pantry provides options for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and operates under a \u201cshopping model.\u201d This means that individuals can choose what they want based on their needs\/tastes, as opposed to the \u201cbag model,\u201d which is when the user is given a bag with pre-determined items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some examples of goods the pantry offers include cereal, oatmeal, canned fruits and vegetables, canned meats like chicken and tuna, spaghetti sauce, soups, starches such as macaroni and cheese, instant mashed potatoes, rice and snack foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pantry also provides for a larger population outside of the college. Students that have a spouse or child will get additional goods to support their household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we developed this program, we realized there was something larger that needed to be done, not only to help the student but also to help the student and their families,\u201d Massie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Shelves filled with condiments. (Photo by Ayzha Middlebrooks)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Depending on the size of the student\u2019s household, national guidelines determine how many items a student and their family can receive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A challenge college officials faced when developing the program was identifying an appropriate space to establish the pantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to approach this with sensitivity,\u201d Massie said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to put this in the middle of campus where students would then have to be carrying bags of groceries to the parking garage and things like that. I think the challenge was slowing it down enough to make sure we were doing things that were right for students, and not necessarily what was easiest for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This month, the Sinclair Food Pantry is available to help students in need on Thursday, March 26 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Next month the pantry will be held on Wednesday, April 8 and Thursday, April 30 at 11 a.m.-2 p.m. It is open to Sinclair students only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe feedback we\u2019ve received has been tremendous,\u201d Massie said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had everything from tears, literally tears, thanking us for providing this, to just amazement that the college is willing to help provide this resource. It has been very gratifying, from where I sit. I\u2019ve been here for almost 13 years and this has probably been some of the most important work I\u2019ve been involved with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry Wolski
<\/strong>Staff Writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students facing food insecurity, defined as the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food in a socially acceptable manner, are more prevalent in the U.S. than one might think.  A fall 2018 survey conducted by the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice found that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":28543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2102,3522,2616,2110,3],"tags":[1200,2702,2000,276,4071],"class_list":["post-28540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-dayton-news","category-featured","category-local","category-tartan-news","tag-building-13","tag-campus-news","tag-henry-wolski","tag-sinclair-community-college","tag-the-sinclair-food-pantry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-7qk","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/food-pantry.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28717,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28540\/revisions\/28717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}