Twice a month, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank’s Mobile Food Pantry delivers fresh, nutritious food to Citrus College students who are dealing with food insecurity. On average the mobile food pantry serves about 200 people per Citrus College visit.
“I think it’s fantastic,” vocational nursing major Marianne Aguilos, 40, said. “It helps lots of people.”
The “Los Angeles Food Bank” website said the food pantry distributes food to locations across Los Angeles County to underserved areas that do not have adequate access to other food assistance programs, such as pantries and soup kitchens.
“The Student Life Office oversees the Mobile Food Pantry at Citrus College,” Basic Needs Coordinator Dunia Valladares said.
To receive food, students line up, sign their names on a roster and then proceed to stations along each side of the mobile food pantry to receive their food items. Students can take one box of food at each station.
Students have a wide variety of food items to choose from, including fresh fruit and vegetables, canned fruit and vegetables, soups, stews, rice, pasta, crackers, bread, bagels and other types of food.
Bread and bagels are popular items, and as a result, tend to run out.
The mobile food pantry is a welcome relief for Citrus College students who are experiencing homelessness.
“I’m homeless and it helps me and my kids out a lot,” dental assistant major Roxanne Macias, 30, said.
Student Life Supervisor Rosario Garcia said the types of food items offered by the mobile food pantry are based on the types of food items requested by students at the Health Center and Veterans Success Center, both locations having Los Angeles Regional Food Bank Food Pantries.
Garcia said some of the different types of food students request are protein shakes, food bars, protein bars, power bars, granola bars, cereal, nuts, trail mix, fruit, dried fruit, juice, canned food, canned meats, canned fish, canned chicken, soup, bread, bagels, peanut butter, any kind of nut butter, yogurt and other food items.
Garcia said because the mobile food pantry is supplied by donated food, it’s hard to control what kinds of food they can get, but they mostly can get the types of food students request.
“We work through L.A. Regional Food Bank because they are easy to work with,” Garcia said. “If we want something done then they accommodate us.”
Citrus College’s Dean of Students Dr. Maryann Tolano-Leveque and Garcia first arranged to have the Mobile Food Pantry come to Citrus College during the spring 2017 semester, once in May and once in June.
However, even though flyers advertising the mobile food pantry had been posted around campus in advance, not many people showed up to receive food, so Tolano-Leveque and Garcia sent out their food drive volunteers to notify students on campus, which helped bring in a couple hundred people.
Volunteers are a big help to the mobile food pantry, and though unpaid, are rewarded in other ways.
“Young and old have a hard time buying food,” sociology major and food drive volunteer Claudia Arevalo, 27, said. “I’m not in class right now so I can spend the time doing something productive and seeing the people happy makes me happy.”
Garcia said that by the fall 2017 semester, the mobile food pantry was coming to campus once a month and within a year was serving students twice a month. By this time, more students knew about the mobile food pantry because professors started notifying students about it in their classes.
Garcia said to ensure as many students as possible can get served, they arrange for the mobile food pantry to come on different days and at different times, in order to accommodate the various class and work times of students.
The “Los Angeles Food Bank” website said research has shown students learn better when they are well-nourished, and eating healthy meals has been linked to higher grades, better memory and alertness and faster information processing. Students that get the nutrition they need are more likely to graduate and live happier, more productive lives.
“We want to provide services that students need so they can can just focus on studying and not have to worry about how they’re going to get food,” Garcia said. “We want to make it easier for students to complete their educational goals.”
A gesture much appreciated by the people the mobile food pantry serves.
“It’s great,” mechanic technician major Brian Perez, 19, said. “I help my family, because my mom doesn’t work, I can bring food home for the family, it’s a blessing from God.”
If interested in becoming a food drive volunteer, inquire at the Office of Student Life and Leadership Development in ED 171 or email Dunia Valladares at dvalladares@citruscollege.edu
