The Food Assistance Fund
“My family has had to overcome tremendous financial obstacles, as my mom is disabled. It was my grandmother who encouraged me to go to college and it was her last wish, before she passed away.”
The Food Assistance Fund really helps us survive. I wasn’t really eating, because I was letting my mom be the one to eat. It affected my studies and my grades began to fall. I’m really an A student, so with the help of the Food Assistance Fund, I was able to get back on track. It effected my studies and my grades began to fall. I’m really an A student, so with the help of the food assistance funds program, I was able to get back on track.assistance
I’m studying elementary education. Every day I encourage kids, like the ones at my apartment complex, to continue to go to school. I tell them they don’t have to be in poverty forever.
In the recent report, Still Hungry and Homeless in College (2018), by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, more than a third of college students do not always have enough to eat and they lack stable housing. The 2018 numbers are even higher when broken out to include only community college students. Nationally, 42 percent of community college students indicated they struggled to get adequate food. The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) is working diligently to turn the tide on the issue of hunger and food insecurity among its student population.
The Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation is working together with MCCCD to bring the issue of hunger and food insecurity among our student population to the forefront by encouraging our supporters and local businesses to help expand programs and services at each college, so that our students can focus on completing their classwork, versus focusing on where they are going to get their next meal. These efforts are critical to the academic success for many of our students.
Food insecurity can be a barrier to student success. Check out this Fox 10 News interview with Brian Spicker, President and CEO, Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation and Dr. Ray Ostos, District Director, Student Affairs, Maricopa Community Colleges, from the Mesa Market at Mesa Community College. Support for these programs, like the grant we received from The Kroger Co. Foundation in partnership with Fry’s Food Stores, allow for our students to focus on their education and not their next meal.