Middlesex College Food Pantry Receives $4,000 Grant
The original Food Pantry Committee of Middlesex College visited a local supermarket November 14 to purchase food and other pantry items, including personal hygiene and cleaning products, using a $4,000 Spotlight Grant from the Edison Elks Lodge #2487.
(l-r) Tim Hack; Chair, History and Social Sciences; Mary Tutalo, Student Life Coordinator; Charlotte Quigley, Director of Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships; and Kathy Shay, former Professor of Mathematics
The Edison Elks is a community partner that regularly provides support for Middlesex College students in the form of grants. The Spotlight Grant award comes on the heels of the Edison Elks award of a $1,000 Freedom Grant, which was used at the beginning of the fall semester to purchase classroom supplies for the College’s military and veteran students.
The Elks’ Spotlight Grant shines a light on three issues facing American communities: early childhood literacy, veteran homelessness, and hunger.
The College’s food pantry committee’s trip to the supermarket served as an opportunity for some of the original members of the committee to reunite and mark the five-year anniversary of the Food Pantry’s creation in 2018.
The individuals who made up the original group (Jennifer Altman, Community-Engaged Learning Faulty Coordinator; Professor Alexandra Fields, Academic Director for the Center for Justice-Impacted Students; Tim Hack; Chair, History and Social Sciences; Ariana Illa, Instructor of Social Work; Brian Lavey, Faculty, Natural Sciences; Professor Pat Payne, Professor, History and Social Sciences; Charlotte Quigley, Director of Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships; Alumni Dorothy Bitetto; and Kathy Shay, former Professor of Mathematics) were “instrumental in writing the proposal and conducting the research that was the impetus in the creation of the food pantry in 2018,” explained Student Life Coordinator Mary Tutalo, who worked with Ron Hayes of the Edison Elks #2487 on the Spotlight Grant application.
Shay, who retired from the College several months after the food pantry opened in January 2018, recalled how attending an antipoverty conference in 2017 spurred the idea of establishing a food pantry on campus.
“After that, I started investigating other college campuses that had food pantries already. And we brought a committee together and worked on a proposal that we submitted to [then] Vice President McCormick, who was very supportive,” Shay detailed.
Quigley shared a difficult experience she had years ago, prior to the existence of the campus food pantry, that underscored the food insecurity that many students struggle with.
“A student came in who clearly was not feeling well. It turns out she was living in her car and hadn’t had money to eat for a couple of days because there were other expenses she was trying to deal with. My colleague and I tried to come up with resources we had at the time, including cash and a gift card. But it was clear that our students have need that is far beyond the classroom. You can’t learn when you’re starving,” said Quigley.
The food pantry has evolved and expanded since it launched five years ago. Renamed in 2020 as the Community Resource Hub & Food Pantry, expanded services address a broader range of basic needs beyond food insecurity, such as those related to housing, healthcare, transportation, childcare, technology, WIFI access, and more.
Learn more about the Middlesex College Community Resource Hub & Food Pantry.
