Food Pantry on Wheels Coming To Middlesex Community College

Middlesex Community College staffers Judith Felton of Middletown and Trenton Wright of Old Lyme were instrumental in the college's acquiring this bus, which will be painted and retrofitted to become a food pantry on wheels.

MIDDLETOWN – Middlesex Community College next semester will unveil a new vehicle for fighting student hunger: a food pantry on wheels.

In August, the Magic Food Bus will open its doors to provide food to hungry students and their families at no cost. The bus will be run by students and supported by members of the Congress of Connecticut Community Colleges (4Cs), the union that represents faculty and professional staff at Middlesex.

“There is a hunger problem in Middletown that reaches into our student body,” said 4Cs Middlesex Staff Officer and Old Lyme resident Trenton Wright, coordinator of Institutional Advancement at the college. “In Middlesex County, some five percent of households meet the federal poverty guidelines and about 20 percent meet the guidelines for ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.

“Many students at MxCC come from households that reflect these statistics,” Wright said. “Some are faced with hunger or food insecurity and have tough choices to make when deciding on whether to buy groceries for their families, or to buy textbooks.”

“In addition, students face the costs of transportation, childcare, rent, utilities, and the other necessities of life,” he said. “The stress of managing these challenges can interfere with these students’ academic performance.”

Hunger on campus has become a national problem. A survey done this year at Western Oregon University cited by the Washington Post found that 59 percent of students experienced food insecurity. A 2009 survey at the University of Hawaii at Manoa found that 21 percent of students experienced the same problem.

MxCC’s Magic Food Bus is designed to address this problem, said Judith Felton, Professor, of Human Services and Psychology and Coordinator, Center for Community Engagement. “The bus will provide students and their families access to free non-perishable food items that will be donated by faculty, staff and students,” said Felton, a Middletown resident.

“We estimate that the bus will provide food to 1,000 students and family members during the first year,” she said.

The bus will also serve faculty and staff who may have difficulty putting food on the table, said Felton, who approached Middlesex officials about starting a food pantry after visiting one at Norwalk Community College. Part-time college professors, who are paid less than $5,000 per course and are limited to two per semester, are especially vulnerable. They’re limited to teaching only two courses per semester and can lose one or both of them with as little as one day’s notice.

The bus will be run by Middlesex students with the support of faculty and staff members, who have made individual contributions to the bus. In addition, 4Cs representatives from around the state voted to make a $250 donation to the center.

One person who is impressed by 4Cs members’ involvement in the project is union President Bryan Bonina of Bristol. “The response of 4Cs members both in Middletown and statewide makes me proud to be a part of this organization,” he said. “It’s another example of the 4Cs’ Culture of Commitment to students and the community.”

The 4Cs response to the Middlesex hunger problem is just one example of union members’ commitment to students and the community, he said. “Every month, the 4Cs representatives from our 12 campuses vote to make as many as five donations to support efforts such as food pantries, clothing drives, scholarship funds, and other efforts of a wide variety of social service organizations,” Bonina said.

The bus, which will be used to store the non-perishable food items to be distributed to the students, cost $6,000, Wright said. It was raised through grants and faculty/staff contributions.

A second round of grants will cover painting the bus, retrofitting is with a table, chair, computer hookup and storage racks, he said.

Wright said the Magic Food Bus will work in tandem with Amazing Grace, another Middletown food pantry. “We plan to donate some food we collect to Amazing Grace to help them in their efforts,” he said. “We hope that, together, we can help reduce the degree of hunger in the Middletown area.”