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CSUF food pantry collaborates with community partners

April 12, 2023

By Nicole Gregory, contributing writer

Students who are experiencing food insecurity never have to go hungry at Cal State Fullerton. The Associated Students Inc. Food Pantry is a free and permanent service for currently enrolled students. The 700-square-foot pantry in the Titan Student Union is open Monday through Friday and is stocked with produce, frozen and canned foods, and freshly prepared meals, all with the support of key partners, including the Fullerton Arboretum.

When it opened in 2021, CSUF’s food pantry served about 100 students each week, but that number has since climbed to 600 per week, said Kristen Johansson, a graduate student who is about to get her master’s degree in public health and who works part time in the pantry. She records how many students come to the food pantry each week and how many total visits the food pantry gets each month.

The pantry will move into a bigger space by the beginning of the next school year to accommodate the increased number of students who use it.

The Fullerton Arboretum provides the ASI Food Pantry with oranges, grapefruit, pears, plums, peaches, lemons, limes and avocados. The pantry reciprocates by donating compost to the Arboretum. (Courtesy of CSUF News Media Services)

The CSUF food pantry is stocked with canned goods, frozen meals and fresh produce supplied by the Arboretum and other community partners. (Courtesy of CSUF News Media Services)

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“A lot of our students have many responsibilities — they’re working, they’re students, they’re parents — and they don’t always have money for all their basic needs,” said pantry coordinator Bernadett Leggis, who added that inflation is a contributing factor for the growing number of students who need the food pantry. Whenever possible, Leggis and her team help students connect with the Cal Fresh program, which provides food benefits to low-income families.

The United States Department of Agriculture defines two degrees of food insecurity. “Low food insecurity” means a person’s diet lacks quality, variety, or desirability. “Very low food insecurity” is when a person’s eating patterns are disrupted and food intake is reduced.

“Produce is really a necessity for students, and they request it, so we do our best to give them produce options,” Johansson said. Depending on the season, the Fullerton Arboretum provides the ASI Food Pantry with oranges, grapefruit, pears, plums, peaches, lemons, limes and avocados. The pantry reciprocates by donating compost to the Arboretum.

“Once a week on Thursdays, we take the composting we have and drop it off in the Arboretum’s composting pile,” she said. “And they provide us with extra produce harvested that week.” This arrangement was started a year ago and has been a success — the Arboretum has donated 1,900 pounds of produce, and the pantry has contributed 6,000 pounds of compost to its gardens. “It’s a wonderful collaboration,” Johansson said.

Donations from local businesses also help keep the shelves stocked with food. “Second Harvest is a food bank that helps feed people throughout Orange County,” Leggis said. “They provide donations to the pantry of two to three large pallets of food each week, which is about 1,000 pounds of food per pallet.” This includes milk, dairy, frozen meat, produce and nonperishable canned foods.

Thanks to the class of 2022, donated food pickups have gotten a lot easier — the class gift was money for the pantry to purchase a van. “It allows us to go out into the community more often and receive the donated food,” Leggis said. Food pantry assistants drive the van to pick up donations each week from two Ralphs stores and a Sprouts Farmers Market store. This food might be overstocked items or items close to the labeled date.

Another major partner is Bracken’s Kitchen, a 501(c)(3) in Garden Grove that provides culinary training and also makes — and then donates — freshly prepared frozen meals and soups for people in need. “They make thousands of meals per week,” Leggis said.

Food pantries are now open on many college campuses around Southern California. “Every CSU has a food pantry, and most UCs have some form of pantry, too,” Johansson said.

Each student who comes to the ASI Food Pantry is given an amount of free food they can take home. “Because we are donation-based, the amount we have of each food per week differs,” Leggis said. “There is a limit for some food items to create an equal chance for everyone,” she said. “We also have items that don’t count toward your limit,” she said. “For example, right now we have so much canned tuna, so 10 canned tunas count as one item.”

As a student of public health working in the food pantry, Johansson has a close-up view of how a community addresses food insecurity. “It’s been very eye-opening and heartwarming,” she said. “Through the different collaborations, our common goals — basic needs, supporting the environment, preventing food waste — are achieved. The ASI food pantry is mighty and these collaborations make us so incredibly mightier.”

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CSUF food pantry collaborates with community partners

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