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The effort at UConn Stamford is further along than at the other campuses, thanks to associate professor-in-residence Laura Bunyan who started the pantry in the spring as a class project<\/a>, opening three days a week with items from the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County Inc.<\/a> and other providers.<\/p>\n Today, Bunyan, who teaches sociology<\/a>, has a team of helpers in a converted conference room down the hall from where she started, including nearly a dozen student workers and a co-director in Rosa Rizzo, who usually works in operations at the campus.<\/p>\n The extra help is necessary, especially now \u2013 Stop & Shop, after hearing about the pop-up pantry, provided $7,500 in gift cards to buy needed items; Unilever has offered a few hundred boxes of body wash and deodorant; and an anonymous donor gave $5,000 to help make purchases.<\/p>\n The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County continues to be a source of food for the pantry, and Liz Sue Bagels Inc. in Stamford donates dozens of bagels \u2013 almost too many to count \u2013 weekly.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the bagels, we just went for it,\u201d Bunyan says. \u201cWe put them out on the main concourse with napkins and paper bags. If people want to take a couple, great. Some say they feel weird taking more than one, but that\u2019s what they are there for. If you want to eat one right now, go for it. If you want to take a bag home for the week, that\u2019s great too.\u201d<\/p>\n What they couldn\u2019t offer, Bunyan says, is cream cheese or anything else to flavor the bagels. And that\u2019s where donors, who can provide bulk items from warehouse stores that the pantry itself can\u2019t source, are most needed.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents love cereal and pancake mix, which we can usually get. What we have a hard time supplying is syrup and shelf-stable milk of different kinds, like oat and soy,\u201d Bunyan says. \u201cDonations are down right now. It could be because it\u2019s expensive for everyone. A lot of our students have larger family needs and family stresses, that\u2019s coming across to us. And those are only the ones who are talking about it, not everyone is.\u201d<\/p>\n Six Years in the Making at UConn Hartford<\/strong><\/p>\n The effort to locate a pantry at UConn Hartford<\/a> has been long in the making, says Associate Campus Director Nadine Brennan; six years to be precise, with three close but ultimately unsuccessful tries to arrange for something permanent.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the things I\u2019ve been fighting for and am so passionate about,\u201d she says. \u201cThis need is just growing. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not shrinking.\u201d<\/p>\n After each attempt at something permanent, campus leaders, she says, tried stop-gap measures to help students \u2013 offering pizza at events and breakfast during finals, for example. And through the years, some faculty and staff members have even reached into their own wallets to help individual students.<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t enough, though.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m feeling very grateful and thankful the leadership of the University is taking this to heart and doing something to help students in this regard,\u201d Brennan says. \u201cAll the barriers students are up against are real. We talk about workforce development, and that\u2019s important, but the reality is we have to get students through school first. We can\u2019t let low-income students take out loans, then flunk out of school because they\u2019re hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n Brennan credits the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health<\/a>, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Jeffrey Shoulson, and Sally Reis, special advisor to Interim Provost Anne D\u2019Alleva, with taking a special interest in shepherding through the effort across the regional campuses.<\/p>\n In Hartford, she notes that Campus Director Mark Overmyer-Velazquez has been instrumental in helping to develop a fitting space for the pantry – on the ground floor, just off the elevator in a private area. For those who want anonymity, there\u2019s a hallway that will offer an egress away from throngs of people.<\/p>\n \u201cI am thrilled to know we are partnering with Connecticut Foodshare and that our students will have access to food,\u201d Brennan says. \u201cGetting to this point has been a challenging and now rewarding experience for me. I deeply care for our students and know that it is a privilege to have a hand in their academic success by providing them access to food.\u201d<\/p>\n Connecticut Foodshare CEO: \u2018We want our pantries to be warm, welcoming places\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Under the agreement with Connecticut Foodshare, UConn will become one of the nonprofit\u2019s partner agencies, eligible to get food just the same as 600 other groups statewide, Connecticut Foodshare President and CEO Jason Jakubowski \u201999 (CLAS), \u201901 MPA says.<\/p>\n \u201cThey also will be able to tap into our knowledge of best practices around setting up a pantry. There are a lot of health and safety regulations, and there is a lot of outreach,\u201d he says. \u201cWe want our pantries to be warm, welcoming places for people to come and be able to get the food they need, which is why I love the name Husky Harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n Leaders at each regional campus are learning how to use the computer system to order food and set up a schedule to receive deliveries, he explains. They\u2019re also learning how to connect people to SNAP benefits and a bit about the nutritional component of keeping a pantry.<\/p>\n The process for that is ongoing and the hope is to have all the pantries online before the spring semester, he says.<\/p>\n Connecticut Foodshare already has partnerships with most of the institutions in the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities<\/a> system, and while the state legislature only recently started requiring public entities of higher education to report food insecurity numbers, Jakubowski says that requiring campus pantries likely was next.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a high number of people who go hungry on college campuses and it shouldn\u2019t be as shocking as it is,\u201d he says. \u201cThis population is paying for their education, has limited time to work, and might have other expenses like housing or medical bills. When you put those things together, you realize that unless you\u2019re living on campus and have a meal plan, you\u2019re likely to be struggling with food insecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds, \u201cWe\u2019re very excited about this and I\u2019m very excited about this personally. To do this anywhere is always terrific, to do this at my alma mater is extra special.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat makes this even more gratifying is knowing that people have been working on this behind the scenes for the last several years,\u201d he says. \u201cThis has not been something that materialized overnight. We\u2019ve talked about this with administrators, we\u2019ve talked about it with the trustees. We\u2019re finally at the point that President Radenka Maric has come out and said this is what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019re making a commitment to help our students who are struggling with food insecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n UConn Avery Point Hoping for Partners<\/strong><\/p>\n UConn Avery Point<\/a> Director of Campus Operations Janene Vandi says she expects undergraduate and graduate students especially – by virtue of who they are, how much they\u2019re studying, and what they\u2019re earning – to take advantage of the pantry once it opens in the Community Professional Building on the Groton campus.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to open modestly three or four times a week and see what the need is,\u201d Vandi, who also serves as the associate campus director, says. \u201cWe have a lot of first-generation students who are bound to our area and must work a lot of hours to bring money home to their families. We hear that families are struggling, and we do anticipate there will be a good number of students who rely on the resources here.\u201d<\/p>\n Dining services does have a cafeteria on campus, Vandi notes, but \u201csometimes a $10 meal, five days a week stretches a person\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n The Connecticut Foodshare partnership will provide items for people to take home and make a meal \u2013 think pasta and sauce, rice and beans, peanut butter and jelly. But Vandi hopes to have a grab-and-go section with granola bars and yogurt to fill in the gaps between meals. It\u2019s an effort that will come from the campus and wider community as those items can\u2019t be sourced from Connecticut Foodshare.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of faculty and staff who\u2019ve started to hear about Husky Harvest and ask how they could help. We\u2019re either going to take their items or their dollars and convert them into grab-and-go, so when a student or member of the faculty or staff goes into the pantry and they\u2019re hungry, right away they\u2019ll have something to get them home to their families so they can prepare the meal that Connecticut Foodshare is providing.\u201d<\/p>\n And while UConn Stamford has bagels, UConn Avery Point hopes to partner with Research Vessel Connecticut, which takes University researchers and other groups out to sea for weeks at a clip and oftentimes docks for the winter with a modest supply of unused food.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can\u2019t take it home and they don\u2019t want to throw it away,\u201d Vandi says. \u201cThey\u2019ve struggled with what to do with the leftovers. It would be one more unique thing we can contribute to the food pantry because of where our campus is and what it does.\u201d<\/p>\n A Population at UConn Waterbury That Will Really Benefit<\/strong><\/p>\n UConn Waterbury<\/a> Interim Associate Director Christine Scott-Dougan says the food pantry also will bear its own thumbprint when it opens \u2013 Day 1 will feature a farmers market-style lobby full of food meant to announce the opening in a grand way and welcome Huskies to take advantage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize the need of the student population on campus,\u201d she says. \u201cMany come from financially disadvantaged families: 84% of our students receive some form of aid and 55% receive need-based grants, which is the highest of any campus. Many of our students take public transportation to get here and come from as far away as New Haven and Bridgeport. We have a population of students who will really benefit from this.\u201d<\/p>\n After its opening, the pantry will settle into a permanent home in the Rectory Building, on the main floor in the back of Spirit Caf\u00e9. Scott-Dougan says organizers understand they\u2019ll have to be deliberate in the food they request from Connecticut Foodshare, namely because it may travel many miles on a bus without refrigeration, before arriving home.<\/p>\n She\u2019s also still trying to figure out some logistics \u2013 for instance, whether students should email a list of requested items so they can be bagged and waiting for them, or whether they would feel comfortable just visiting Husky Harvest on their own.<\/p>\n Time will tell, but if the success of Spirit Caf\u00e9, itself, is any indication, the pantry will be a success.<\/p>\n In the spring, Spirit Caf\u00e9 opened a few times a week in the former Starbucks in the Rectory Building, Scott-Dougan says. An offshoot of an internet caf\u00e9 on Bank Street around the corner, the campus location offered subsidized meals for students \u2013 a sandwich, chips, and a drink for $5.<\/p>\n This semester, it\u2019s expanded to four days a week from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and \u201cstudents are over there all the time, talking and engaging. It\u2019s become something we really wanted that space to be,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Soon with the pantry – and a plan to connect users with additional food assistance closer to where they live \u2013 the caf\u00e9 will embody the full spirit of the campus.<\/p>\n \u201cThe faculty and staff at UConn Waterbury are so committed to helping our students in and out of the classroom and come together to dedicate their time whenever they are called upon to do so. This has never been truer than with the food pantry,\u201d Scott-Dougan says.<\/p>\n Contributions to the Regional Campus Food Insecurity Fund<\/a> at the UConn Foundation<\/a> can be made online. To contribute food or money specifically to Husky Harvest at UConn Stamford, visit the pantry\u2019s Amazon wish list<\/a> or visit its website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Students, faculty, community groups, merchants, and others join together to address growing need<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":192128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2226,1715,2192,2193,2194,2199,2431,2235,173,92,174,2225,90,2227,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2368],"class_list":["post-192124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-clas","category-community-impact","category-fairfield-county","category-hartford-county","category-new-haven-county","category-new-london-county","category-sociology","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-avery-point","category-uconn-hartford","category-uconn-stamford","category-uconn-storrs","category-uconn-waterbury","category-uconn-edu-homepage","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-28 05:26:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192124"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192646,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192124\/revisions\/192646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/192128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192124"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=192124"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=192124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Husky](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/100622-UConnStamfordFoodPantry-2-300x200.jpg\")
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