Glendale Community College opened their pantry service Tuesday, Feb 1. and will take place Wednesday between nine and 12 in the Student Union in Room 123A(These hours are guaranteed). The pantry provides items such as food and toiletries to students who may be having trouble accessing these essentials.
The items available are a combo of donations given to the school, pick up from St. Mary’s and items purchased by students/faculty. According to Student Leadership Director Connie Greenwell, the best time to come to the pantry is:
When you need something to eat. The Food Pantry is open if the Student Leadership Center is open and available throughout the entire year.”
Student Leadership Director Connie Greenwell
With much of the current classes taking place online, students may not be aware that this program exists. I emailed Greenwell with a few questions about this much needed service Student Leadership provides. When asked if she had noticed an increase in a need for this program since the pandemic began, Greenwell responded:
I believe there is an increased need, but not necessarily an increased number of students who visit the pantry to make use of the service. This is directly tied to the pandemic in that a great many of our students have been online and/or not on site. We are still averaging over 1,000 (and are increasing) students monthly in the pantry. We also host monthly no contact, drive-thru food distributions for the entire community in addition to our student population.
Student Leadership Director Connie Greenwell
Many students are going hungry and without basic necessities in their households. Food insecurity has doubled since the pandemic began in students according to a study done by Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona Dr. Na Zuo. Providing a service like the food pantry can make a massive difference in the lives of students as well as their families. Greenwell also recognizes the necessity for this service.
We’re helping people to be able to get something to eat while on campus and put food into their households through the take home items in the pantry and the food distributions. Even if they aren’t experiencing food insecurity at home we are helping stretch the dollars they have through this program.
Student Leadership Director Connie Greenwell
Student Leadership is doing all they can to make this service available and accessible to students. When I asked how could student’s help improve this program Greenwell responded:
They can help best by taking advantage of the food available through distributions and to also perhaps volunteer on the days that we host them–we can always use extra hands.
Student Leadership Director Connie Greenwell
Please visit this link to volunteer: https://forms.gle/1kgfS6jCRhPDnSWT9.” If you would like to learn more about the food pantry, go to https://www.gccaz.edu/community/food-pantry.
Not everyone is able to have access to basic necessities such as food and toiletries, which is why GCC’s food pantry is a great service to offer. A program like this shows students that the school and the community care for them, and that they shouldn’t have to worry about their most basic needs. It’s always nice seeing institutions like GCC give back to the community and shows students that there is hope. Even though a lot of us come from a background where we never really had to worry about where our next meal would come from, a lot of families unfortunately have to think about these things. No matter what your financial background is, food drives like this teach us a little bit about ourselves. For some of us, food drives teach us that it’s good to give back. For the rest of us, it teaches us that it’s okay to accept help when we need it. No one stays on a linear path their entire life. There are going to be times when things are good and times when things are bad. It’s up to us to be there for one another, and pick each other up when someone falls down.
This is a really exceptionally well written article. I can see an obvious application of skill that implements the fundamentals of journalism. I especially appreciated how the quotes from your sources are their own separate element in the story. Having the different colored box to differentiate the quotes from the rest of the article, really help drive home their importance. It’s an intuitive way to make for a dynamic article style. This is something I have personally never seen before, and I may take influence from, respectfully of course.
The pantry concept is something that’s really great to see expanding. I originally started my community college career at Mesa community college, who had a version of Glendales pantry when I first enrolled in 2018. It was the first of its kind I saw at the time, but in addition to the one now at Glendale, I’ve seen some as public as fridge outside a city community center. In the small town of Heber-Overgaard, there is one outside a business that has canned food and non perishables for anyone to take. It’s a concept that is truly altruistic, and restores some faith in humanity.
Thanks for sharing this resourceful, and very inclusive information!
Thank you for writing about this and bringing this to our attention! Access to basic human needs and rights such as food and water is something that not everyone is able to have unfortunately, so it is great to see that GCC has a program like this! Colleges bring together tons of different people from different social and financial backgrounds, from those fresh out of high school to those with several children, and not everyone is going to be on the same footing. Food drives and donation drives in general may not get the attention they deserve, so it’s great to see the efforts being made to improve student life overall. Especially in the past two years of the pandemic and economic hardship, a sense of community and local relief efforts could not be more important, and this goes to show that these things can truly change a person’s life. Charity to some may seem like a burden, but that could not be farther from the truth. Showing kindness and helping those in need around you is one of those small things that makes a massive difference, and the GCC food drive can now be another thing that helps students keep going and make a positive impact on their lives going forward.
Hey Ashley,
You have done a great job on this article letting people know about the food pantry at Glendale Community College. There is some great information in this piece. You give a lot of information on when and where you can pick up food at the college.
I think that it’s important to have access to these types of programs especially during this pandemic that we’re living through. This is a great program for people who need it. Every person deserves a way to fulfill their basic human needs. We all need help at some point in our lives. I know that it can be hard to accept this help when you need it, but it can change the way you think when you accept help. I have been in the position of not knowing where my next meal was coming from, so I know a lot of people who are in need appreciate when there is a way to access these kinds of things. Accessibility is key for people who need the help, so having a food pantry at GCC is a great way for people to access this.
Thank you for sharing these resources that are available to us!
Hey Ashley, This article is an awesome spotlight on an important service the campus is providing. It’s so important to get the word out about services that students can take benefit from, especially in the weird pandemic times we’re living in. It’s interesting that you point out there’s an increased need for services like this, but we’re not seeing an increased number of students visiting the pantry to leverage service. The quote from Connie Greenwell makes a good point about an increase in online learning leading to less students on campus that might hear about this service. Being fully online definitely makes it hard to keep a pulse on what’s happening on campus. I’ll keep your article on hand to share with any of my online classmates who might not know about the program.
Hello Ashley, your article does a great job of shining light on a serious and growing problem. I liked how you pointed out the effects of the pandemic when talking about increased hunger. Hunger can create many severe problems for students. Hunger can lead to anxiety and poor academic performance. It is important students know their are resources that will help them. The interview flows nicely with the article. The questions you asked helped me understand the food pantry service a lot better. It was a good decision too add a link to volunteer and learn more about the program at the end. The primary audience of this article will most likely be GCC students. Your article will help students, who were not aware of this service, become informed. We should all work together to fight food insecurity. Every student deserves a fair chance and no one should live in constant hunger. Your article also will encourage students to get involved in trying to stop hunger. The media can help share a message quickly while simultaneously reaching a large audience. Hopefully stories like these will be shared so much that other even more institutions are inspired to help. The detail in this article is spot on as well. Overall, great job.