{"id":225942,"date":"2025-02-26T07:15:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T12:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=225942"},"modified":"2025-03-20T12:01:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T16:01:29","slug":"uconn-seniors-organization-takes-aim-at-food-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/02\/uconn-seniors-organization-takes-aim-at-food-insecurity\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Senior’s Organization Takes Aim at Food Insecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UConn senior is battling food insecurity on both sides of the Atlantic with a program he started to provide meals for low-income families in New Haven and in Ghana.<\/p>\n

Anthony Mensah \u201825 (CAHNR<\/a>) started AJANO Cooperative<\/a> in 2021 with his friends Akosua Asante, John Mensah, and Nee Ashitey Boateng, with a mission to provide people with high-quality food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to prioritize finding a way to help these people get access to healthy proteins,\u201d says Mensah, an Economics of Sustainable Development and Management (ESDM<\/a>) major. \u201cA diet full of just carbs and unhealthy food limits your life’s potential, and that\u2019s something we want to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Countdown<\/p>\n

Mensah grew up in Ghana, and his family moved to New Haven in 2017. He said the idea to start AJANO was sparked by a friend who came from a lower-income background. She showed Mensah the need for greater access to high-quality proteins, and then they started the program together.<\/p>\n

AJANO held its first food drive in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Mensah and his colleagues reached out to the principal of a high school in a low-income area of the city. The principal was able to conduct an anonymous survey of students facing food insecurity. \u201cWe made sure it was anonymous so that there would be no shame in making sure that these people had access to the food that they needed,\u201d says Mensah.<\/p>\n

The second food drive was in New Haven in the summer of 2024. \u201cIt was a little bit bigger in scale,\u201d says Mensah.<\/p>\n

That might be an understatement: the group partnered with three food banks in New Haven and was able to source and give out a whopping 6,000 pounds of chicken and 1,000 pounds of beef.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of the best experiences in the world, just being able to see the numbers. There\u2019s something that people really care about,\u201d says Mensah.<\/p>\n

AJANO has plans to host a food drive every two years, with expectations of growth each time. Putting together a food drive specifically to provide high-quality protein, though, isn’t easy.<\/p>\n

\"UConn
Anthony Mensa ’25 has plans to make future food drives even more successful (courtesy of Anthony Mensah)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMost food banks don\u2019t have access to meat, and if they do, it\u2019s very processed, which just defeats the whole purpose,\u201d Mensah says.<\/p>\n

Adding to the challenge was finding foods low in sodium, and finding people willing to work with the young organization. Luckily, Mensah and his colleagues were able to connect with Ashitey Owusu, a food economist who recommended specific combinations to maximize the nutritional value of the food packages AJANO distributed.<\/p>\n

And AJANO isn’t limiting the help it provides young Ghanaians to food drives. The organization’s Think Deeper Writing Competition \u201cwas created to promote critical literacy and inspire Ghanaian high school students to engage with philosophical texts and think critically about our role in the world,\u201d according to the AJANO website. Winners receive cash prizes.<\/p>\n

As far as his own studies, Mensah says UConn has helped grow AJANO. Courses like Food Policy (ARE 2260) helped him understand the processes and complexities of food as an industry, and shaped his goals for the organization. Associate Professor Tatiana Andreyeva, who taught the class and is also director of economic initiatives at the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, provided context for the kinds of institutions that run food banks, Mensah says, and helped him connect with resources and organizations to help AJANO source 6,000 pounds of chicken.<\/p>\n

Mensah says his advisor, Associate Professor Nathan Fiala, has also helped him stay motivated with AJANO while taking high-level courses at UConn. He considered taking a break from the food drives while in school. \u201cHe gave me the motivation to keep doing it,\u201d says Mensah.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of sad to see the people coming up and then seeing them be a little bit shy,” Mensah says, reflecting on the first two successful food drives. “But then when they get the high-quality meat that they need, seeing the relief on their face because you know this is going to feed someone’s family, that’s just that feeling – just knowing that you’re helping someone out there. It’s just priceless.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Focusing on healthy proteins for families in New Haven and Ghana <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":226228,"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":[2297,2224,2229,1715,2467,2649,2650,2194,2624,156,259,99,2235,2306,2227,2458],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-225942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agricultural-resource-economics","category-cahnr","category-commencement","category-community-impact","category-global-cultures-perspectives","category-blue-pride","category-blue-impact","category-new-haven-county","category-blue","category-profile","category-rudd-center","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-uconn-edu-homepage","category-undergraduates"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 19:02:07","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\/225942","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225942"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226098,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225942\/revisions\/226098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/226228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225942"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=225942"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=225942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}