Photos by Little Outdoor Giants

College for anyone is a series of new and unpredictable events. But for a good portion of Quinsigamond Community College students, there is an added unknown in their lives: Where might their next meal come from? 

In 2017, the Wisconsin HOPE Lab (now the Wisconsin Hope Center) reached out to all U.S. state institutions, inviting them to take part in a survey on food insecurity. For Quinsigamond Community College (QCC), the results were eye-opening: 49% of students reported being food insecure. Following this survey, a small group of staff, including Dean of Students Theresa Vecchio, decided to take action. 

With initial financial help from the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Program, they started what would become the QCC Food Pantry & Resource Center in July 2018. 

“We put up some shelving and bought some nonperishable food. We had very little space,“ says Vecchio. They were able to secure funding through the QCC Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the college, and purchased a refrigerator and additional groceries. 

The first few months were a bit of a learning curve. “We didn’t really know what we were doing,“ says Vecchio. 

It quickly became clear that there was a great need for the food pantry. Through July and August 2018, the food pantry helped about 10 to 15 students. But when the semester started on Sept. 1, that number jumped to 250 within six weeks.

Since then the number of food pantry clients has continued to grow, and the process has become smoother and more defined. 

The pantry operates on Wednesdays only. The staff picks up 2,000 pounds of food from the Worcester County Food Bank, bags it and distributes it over the course of an hour in one afternoon. To add to the nonperishable items being provided, and again with help from Phi Theta Kappa, the food pantry staff converted a bus stop into a garden where they can grow fresh vegetables for distribution. They’ve also started handing out items like diapers; toothbrushes and toothpaste; breads; Danish and even pandemic personal protective equipment (PPE) items. The food pantry staff holds a monthly food insecurity meeting to discuss student needs and talk to members of the community. Recent events have added another uncertainty: What does a post-COVID food pantry look like?

After shutting down in late winter/early spring, the food pantry reopened on April 1 with a new intake form that includes households rather than just individuals. Since then, they’ve received 286 forms. 

“We used to count student numbers,“ says Vecchio, “but we now ask, ‘How many people in the household?’ So that’s now 286 families, which could be, potentially, over 1,000 people.” 

As the pantry adapts to the current COVID world, which entails QCC’s fall semester being entirely remote, they now offer a strictly curbside pickup and the staff predicts that numbers could continue to soar. 

“If we had 49% of our students who were food insecure pre-COVID, the numbers are going to be astronomical now,” says Vecchio. 

Once things return to a new normal, the food pantry has plans to open again for pickups with a new waiting area available. Until that time, the curbside pickup will remain an option for anyone experiencing food insecurity. If you’d like to help, the simplest way would be to make a donation to the QCC Foundation and indicate that it should go to the food pantry. 

qcc.edu/services/food-pantry-resource-center

This story appeared in the Fall/Holiday 2020 issue of Edible Worcester.