NYU Almost Had A Food Pantry
In the midst of NYU’s discussion about affordability, what’s going on with food security at NYU?
This past summer, a working group of students, coupled with members of the NYU administration and the head of NYU Dining, met together to plan a pilot program for an NYU Food Pantry. As the fall semester 2016 approached, the plan slowly seemed less and less feasible, and now, with January only a few weeks away, plans seem to be all but abandoned.
On the condition of anonymity, a student involved in the working group from this past summer agreed to speak with us about the efforts to create a food plan.
“We were supposed to have weekly meetings between mid July and the end of August. A lot of them got cancelled,” they said in an email. “But towards the end they were sort of like… ‘We’re already doing enough.’”
“‘Enough’ was referring to that [six] free meal swipes per semester program,” they continued.
The six free meal swipes program is called Courtesy Meals, and, according to the October 2016 Affordability Steering Committee and Working Group’s updates “…through the Courtesy Meal Program, NYU provides six free meals per semester for students in need of immediate nutritional support.”
The interim update can be found here, which lists the current (and temporary) solutions NYU has listed to tackle hunger, including visiting one of three locations in Manhattan — the Wellness Exchange, Student Resources Center, or Dining Services — and one of two locations in Brooklyn — Student Health Center or the Office of Student Activities — for immediate and short term assistance, using the app Share Meals, or going to a Club E.A.T. (Eating, Affecting, Talking) meeting.
Not listed in the Affordability Steering Committee and Working Group updates?
“They even brought up the Free Food Events at NYU Facebook page, for fuck’s sake,” the anonymous student said. “Like… do they really think hungry students going from club event to club event looking for leftovers is a viable solution to campus food security?”
In response to the Facebook Event Page idea, one student commented “Thanks NYU, I’d love to live off of Pinkberry.”
This goes beyond the affordability conversation at NYU. While many students do have the weight of paying off NYU tuition on their shoulders, and lowering overall costs should certainly be a conversation for all students, some have the very real issue of surviving their time at NYU. Poverty is not a temporary state, and sometimes having a job on top of a full course load won’t cover all of a student’s expenses.
In an email to Local, another member of the student working group who also requested to remain anonymous wrote that “the main reason it was delayed was simply because we were trying to put it together very last minute. The committee to some extent still exists and they are continuing to address food insecurity on campus by working with Share Meals.”
They further explained that the administration hopes that by collecting information from some of these smaller programs, they can create a more long term way to fight food insecurity on campus in the future.
However, after it was clear that we were speaking anonymously, our source was a bit more candid.
“They really don’t think anyone is actually food insecure or poor here.”
“I feel like the administrators didn’t feel like it was a problem and like patted themselves on the back with this [meal] voucher thing and said like that’s enough,” they wrote.
“Also they wanted the food bank to be a short term solution for people if they are in between jobs for a couple weeks not like something to use over the course of a semester. They wanted this to be their short term solution and their long term solution is sending students to the health center because if they are food insecure they must be going through a rough time and are depressed so they should get help.”
The issue is not being too depressed or stressed to eat, it’s that some people can literally not afford food and that is their permanent state of existence. That is what poverty is. Students who come to NYU from living below the poverty line don’t magically escape that financial situation. And, as Local has already reported, the school severely lacks financial support for those in need.
“I think that mental health is extremely important and a good resource for students but going to therapy won’t solve their food insecurity,” continued our second anonymous source.
And they aren’t wrong. The initial efforts for the pilot program seemed promising and the group was looking at other schools who had put similar programs in place. In an email from earlier in the summer from Marc Wais, committees were broken down into:
Promoting and Organizing Donations
Staffing and Volunteers Plan
Collection, Storage, and Distribution of Food
Best Practices from Other Institutions
Assessing Need in the NYU Community (including user intake process)
Now… Share Meals
Share Meals, as an overarching brand can be broken down into three different projects: The Share Meals App, which you can find here, Share Meals at NYU, which is a university club focused specifically on serving the NYU community and Share Meals (also called Share Meals National Branch) that oversees our work at other universities. In an interview via email with Share Meals App creator Jon Chin, we discussed the food pantry concept, food insecurity, proposed solutions and ideas, and where NYU stands compared to other universities.
His app, which just had its closed beta launch on December 6, works to connect students with extra swipes to other students who are hungry.
“To ensure that we have the financial stability to expand,” writes Chin, “both in terms of the quantity of students we serve and also the quality of our services, we offer our data gathering, analysis, and consultation to universities at a reduced fee. So, NYU administration can freely use SMA to increase the level of food security and can help support our mission by taking us on as contractors.”
(At the time of publishing this article, Share Meals has yet to be contracted for their data services by NYU, although they have been given a $3,000 grant by C3 (Campus Coding Collaborative) with a possible contract coming in the future.)
The closed launch will include three more universities, offering the same services, and by the spring will have expanded to five more campuses. The app does more than just connect students though. It is also aggregating data about food insecurity on campus, in a much more affordable way. So if NYU were to contract Share Meals, it would be an affordable alternative to other data collection services.
Is Share Meals going to solve NYU’s hunger issue?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: “The app is magnificent as a short term solution and invaluable to justifying/directing long term solutions, but it’s not a magic bullet,” writes Chin, who will be delivering a TED Talk on this very subject December 12. “We also need to advocate for policy changes, at the university. national, and international level. We need to design more efficient food systems. We need to change the social perception around hunger and destigmatize it.”
So where does NYU actually stand in the grand scheme of fighting on-campus hunger? As we’ve previously reported, at least they are Listening.
“NYU is a bit above the curve,” says Chin, who elaborates with an almost disturbing example from the University of Hawaii. “There are a few outstanding universities, like the University of California school system (which invested $3.3 million over 2 years*) and Michigan State University (which has the oldest student-run college food pantry in the nation), but these are outliers. In general, not many administrations have concrete insights about the reality of hunger among students. For example, the University of Hawaii called me and said that they have absolutely no idea what to do or where to even start.”
Chin further explains that NYU is doing great because they are willing to work with us, not against us. Maybe it doesn’t really feel like that, but after citing examples from Boston University (only 10 guest swipes allowed!) and Cornell (only four guest swipes allowed!), we can safely say that on this matter, NYU administration is not the only university administration that needs to improve.
“In my experience, NYU has the energy and momentum, and the sincerity, to serve their students,” he said.
He was a member of the student working group last summer and from his point of view, things don’t look as grim for the future of the working group.
“My understanding is that the efforts of the task force were put on pause and will resume again during the winter break. Student Affairs came away with one actionable: a list of resources to be distributed to food insecure students. As far as I am aware, they’ve been actively developing and distributing that since September. They have also begun initiating administrators and faculty participation in our student-started Facebook group, Free Food Events at NYU.”
So what’s next?
“The food pantry was brought up, but the working group decided to initially focus on the current programs and resources available to ensure that we make the most immediate impact,” says NYU’s Matt Nagel, Director of Public Affairs. “The group has agreed to meet again this spring to further the conversation on resources we have available to our community, but no specific agenda has been set for those meetings yet.”
“It should be noted that whenever a student faces short-term or long-term financial strain they can contact the NYU Wellness Exchange.”
It is important to note that the initiatives are student-created and organized.
Jon Chin, who maybe has a bit of the kind of faith and optimism we lack here at NYU Local, provided his approach on how to move forward.
“The unique concern of our highly urban campus is that space and location is incredibly expensive. The University of Missouri can commandeer a huge building to serve as a food pantry but the same building in NYC would cost so much that it would be impractical,” he said. “In general, any sort of social solution like one for hunger has to be tailored to the specific environment. If we were to offer food pantry-like services, it would have to fit into our lives. For example, distributed, smaller food pantries, like the one prototyped in Tandon affectionately called the FREEdge, could be a better solution.”
“Honestly, I’m not worried. If anyone is going to innovate a solution for hunger in a city like NYC, it’s going to be us; it’s going to be you and me. NYU is a leading innovator in technology, business, education, and the arts.”
Because we aren’t as optimistic as Jon, let us end on this note: We are like that asshole dad who doesn’t congratulate their kid for getting the participation award. We aren’t going to congratulate NYU for Trying Their Best. (And saying that they are is a stretch. The bulk of initiatives coming from NYU are coming from the students, not the administration.) While we talk about whether NYU is actually doing enough, there are kids and parents having to deal with the realities of poverty, hoping that attending NYU will break the cycle they’ve known their whole lives. We are received a message from an actual concerned parent about whether or not their child will be able to utilize Share Meals in a way that will keep their stomachs full enough to survive. Jon Chin, Share Meals and the other student working groups are doing a hell of a lot to fight hunger on campus, but the university needs to do more. We look forward to seeing the results of the working group’s efforts next semester.
