The Cherry Pantry makes debut at Temple

BY CLAIRE HALLORAN

The Howard Gittis Student Center is the new home to the Cherry Pantry, which opened to students last Monday. 

It was over a year in the making after Dr.Goldrick-Rab, a professor and researcher at Temple, surveyed the community and found that 35 percent of students have experienced food insecurity.

Food insecurity is the state of being without reliable access to affordable, nutritious food and is a prevalent but often overlooked issue in higher education.

Michelle Martin, of the Office of Student Affairs, hope the pantry can also serve as an educational platform.

“Even education like how to shop, and what to shop for and how to make healthy but cheap meals they can afford,” Martin said.

The Cherry Pantry grants each Temple student 16 points a week, which they can use on a variety of available foods such as canned vegetables, ramen noodles, pasta, and cereal.

The pantry is open to any member of the Temple community with a swipe of their OWLcard. When the pantry was announced, there were worries that people might abuse the system. The organizers, however, hope that information about the issue of food insecurity will discourage people from taking food from those who really need it.

“We really want to focus on educating people on what food insecurity is,” said Rachael Stark, the Senior Associate Dean of Students. “We want them to understand that this is for students who are not making ends meet and are literally skipping meals because they don’t have the funds to go grocery shopping.”

While the food pantry is seen by most as a successful first step in solving the food insecurity problem on campus, many see it as just a temporary fix to a complicated problem. With a discussion on food insecurity comes the examination of the federal aid given to students, class and race, housing insecurity, and the lack of access to healthy produce.

North Philadelphia is often referred to as a “food desert”, as grocery stores are scarce. At Temple, Fresh Grocer is one of the only options for students, unless they want to take public transportation a few miles away.

“It’s such a complicated, layered issue,” said Sarah Levine, the student leading the fight against food insecurity at Temple. “Moving forward, at least on a federal level, we need to change the SNAP benefits, making it more open to all college students and allowing for credit hours to count as work.”

The pantry is open Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 pm to 5 pm, and Thursday from 4 pm to 8 PM. Donations can also be dropped off during these hours.