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The academic year at the Iowa Valley Community College District is almost coming to an end, but for some staff and students on campus, work continues in earnest as the institution looks to establish new food pantries at the Marshalltown and Grinnell campuses.
For MCC Director of Student Success Ashtyn Beek and the student-led team behind the upcoming food pantry, the development of the new community service has become quite the novel undertaking for the group of volunteers.
"Everyone involved is fairly new to this whole thing," Beek said. "It's just kind of grown and grown. So it's been a pretty cool process."
The idea was originally hatched by a pair of MCC students, Madison Husak and Alondra Covarrubias, who initiated the project as part of the honors program after studying the issue in a sociology course.
"It's definitely a really great thing to see them kind of be able to apply what they're talking about in class and make something actionable on it," Beek said. "From an educational standpoint, that's exactly what we're looking for."
It is estimated that up to 40 percent of college students experience food insecurity at some point during their academic careers, according to Temple University's Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, which studies basic needs insecurity for college students. As Beek says, MCC is no exception when it comes to educating students experiencing food insecurity.
"Nationwide, this is a huge issue, food insecurity, particularly for college students, and even more so for college students at two year institutions," Beek said. "We don't know specific numbers for here, in particular, but just anecdotally, from faculty, they've shared stories of students mentioning that they didn't have good access to food."
While the need is apparent on campus, planning out the variety of factors of starting a food pantry, like finding appropriate space in both Marshalltown and Grinnell, sourcing community food partners, and finding financial backing has been an involved process for the volunteers at MCC.
"There's sort of this delicate balance between being in a place that's accessible and being in a place that people feel comfortable going to," Beek said. "[We're] making sure that the food that's available to our students, knowing that oftentimes people in underrepresented demographics tend to have higher need (and) making sure that food is culturally relevant."
He also added that the college is also looking to offer a "combination of availabilities" for student access to food at the pantry including prepacked, bagged food for easy pickup, a traditional food pantry setup with produce lining the shelves, and distributing funds to students through gift cards to local businesses to buy their own groceries.
Naturally, the MCC food assistance program is going to require financial support in order to become a sustainable enterprise in the area, but as Beek says, their new pantry is stuck in regulatory limbo, with many grants and public assistance programs looking for "established" pantries rather than start-ups.
As such, the volunteer group is turning towards the greater Marshalltown community.
"We're really trying to hit the fundraising hard so we can get something up and running," Beek said. "We do want to have something available at least through the end of the spring term, and then hopefully, really get things going starting next fall."
The food pantry is currently holding a fundraising raffle through April 14 at noon, when a drawing will take place for a grand prize of a TV and Roku and other prizes such as a handmade quilt, a $100 Theisens's gift card, and more.
When asked for advice to others looking to begin their own pantry in their respective community, Beek was thoughtful in his response.
"Use the resources available," Beek said, referencing fruitful and informative relationships they made with other more established pantries and food organizations in the area. "Hearing what's already going on, making those connections, [you] don't have to try to build this thing from scratch."
So far, Beek reports they have received a wealth of support from community partners and businesses from across Marshalltown, and he has been encouraged by the early outpour of help as the pantry begins to get its legs beneath it.
"Just in the short time that we've been promoting this, the public response has been so great," Beek said. "I think that's just a huge thing for people to be aware of that there is a ton of support in the community for this kind of service."
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Contact Nick Baur at 641-753-6611 or nbaur@timesrepublican.com.