FRESNO-CLOVIS, Calif. (KFSN) — Community colleges in the Central Valley pride themselves on being able to provide for their students beyond their education.
“This right here is one of the greatest things that I think that a campus should possibly have,” Brandi Smith said as she showed off the shelves inside the Crush Pantry.
Smith is a full-time student at Clovis Community College and also an employee at the Crush Pantry, a free grocery resource for students.
Fellow student-employee Karinna Tate joined the pantry to make an impact on her community.
“The fact that we are able to provide food to these students and see them light up because a lot of them are dependent on this, was what initially got me into this field,” Tate said.
But as this historic government shutdown carries on, Basic Needs Director Bonita Gomez says stocking shelves is getting harder, saying, “Unfortunately, from the time that I started to log in to the time that I logged out and submitted the order, half of the items were gone.”
Many junior colleges in the Valley rely heavily on the local food banks to fill their student pantries.
With the lack of federal funding, colleges are now forced to turn to their communities for support.
“Help feed these students, help feed these families, there should be no reason why anybody should go without,” said Smith, pleading with the public for help.
Across town, Fresno City’s Ram Pantry is fighting to keep up with nearly a thousand students in need of support.
“We’re serving about 1,000 a day who really rely on our free grocery program,” Dr. Kizzy Lopez said.
Dr. Lopez is the Basic Needs Director at Fresno City.
She says the work on food assistance began long before food aid programs were targeted.
On Monday, the Trump administration announced partial funding of SNAP, but the specifics of their proposal are still unclear.
With the holidays on the horizon, Dr. Lopez says Fresno City isn’t taking any chances.
“We’ve been working together to try to curate a list of available resources, not only in Fresno but surrounding counties, and pop-up pantries and food distribution, specific to November,” Dr. Lopez said.
Both Fresno City College and Clovis Community College are accepting donations in person and online.
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