Gift Certificates Given To Help Food Insecure Students At Harford Community College

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — A grant totaling more than $13,000 has been awarded to Harford Community College as part of a statewide initiative to address food insecurity among students enrolled at Maryland colleges.

The grant will be used to purchase grocery gift cards to support students who utilize Harford’s food pantry.

The grant, offered by the Maryland Higher Education Commission, was open to state public institutions of higher education and regional higher education centers to address student hunger, leverage more sustainable solutions to address basic food needs on campus, raise awareness of services offered on campus to address those needs and to build strategic partnerships at the local, state and national levels.

Through this grant program, Harford has been designated a Hunger-Free Campus by the state. Under the tenets of the grant, the college has committed to fulfilling certain requirements:

• have an established hunger task force
• have a designated staff member responsible for assisting students in enrolling in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and for informing students in federal work study about their eligibility for SNAP
• participate in National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week
• have a food pantry on campus, and
• conduct an annual student survey on hunger.