For the past month, students across New York have organized Trick-or-Eat food drives to help stock local food pantry shelves to fight back against increasing food insecurity in our local communities. Trick or Eat is a long-standing Halloween food drive where volunteers collect non-perishable items door-to-door instead of candy. The drives, organized by the statewide student-directed nonprofit NYPIRG, collected thousands of non-perishable food items across the state. The Purchase NYPIRG chapter gathered over 700 items, which were donated to the Purchase College Food Pantry.
“Trick or Eat is a really special event because it takes the generosity of our neighbors to make it successful” said Matthew Paolucci, NYPIRG Project Coordinator at SUNY Purchase. “This year, we expanded our food collection efforts by dropping off more than 300 brown paper bags to our neighbors in Rye Brook, and the generosity of their response was incredible.”
Food insecurity, where a person experiences inconsistent access to adequate food due to a lack of money and other resources, is a major problem, with one in four adults in the State experiencing food insecurity. Food insecurity is also a problem that reaches our college campuses. The proportion of college students experiencing financial stress and unmet essential needs is growing.
“Trick or Eat is really important to me because I get to see the impact that it has on my local community when I walk past the food pantry everyday” said NYPIRG volunteer and Purchase student Francisca Schmalz. “seeing people in need benefit from the work that students put in to support one another is really inspiring. ”
Shelters, food pantries, and programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) can assist those who suffer from food insecurity; however, these resources are often underfunded and can be underutilized. These concerns have been compounded by the government shutdown, waning federal funds for food banks, and looming work requirements for SNAP; many students will suddenly find themselves unable to qualify.
NYPIRG’s Hunger and Homelessness project aims to meet the needs of hungry neighbors through events like the annual Trick-or-Eat drive. The project sheds light on the realities of hunger in the on- and off-campus communities. According to NYPIRG’s 2016 Hunger on Campus report, nearly half of the surveyed students were considered food insecure and 22% considered themselves hungry, which means that they were very food insecure. Now, with food pantries at all State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) campuses, NYPIRG’s food drives help ensure that students are able to take advantage of a fully-stocked campus food pantry when they need it most.
“With federal funding cuts looming to our local food banks and members of our community left in limbo as the government shutdown affects SNAP, it’s as important as ever that we keep the shelves in these food pantries stocked so that students can benefit from this service,” said Matthew Paolucci, NYPIRG Project Coordinator at SUNY Purchase. “Even if our drive alone collected just 700 food items for one pantry, the hope is that this kind of work inspires more people to get involved in their local communities during these times of great need.”
Visit www.nypirgstudents.org, to learn more.