Santa Barbara City College and Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria will split $116,000 toward feeding students on their campus that need some extra food.
The grant from state agency CalRecycle will go to the Community Environmental Council, which has partnered with the two colleges to save already-prepared food from businesses that would otherwise throw it out.
“For example at the end of the day if they have soup that’s left over, we will pick it up and reheat it to serve to students,” says Christine Bisson, Coordinator of the Food Science and Nutrition program at Allan Hancock.
Bisson says food insecurity among students is a growing trend: “I’ve been teaching nutrition science at the college for almost 20 years and I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of students that come to campus just hungry.”
Over at Santa Barbara City College, part of the funding will go towards a food pantry.
“This grant will allow us to put some infrastructure in place to store and properly hand those types of prepared food, so there will basically not only be more food, but better variety of food,” says SBCC Foundation Director of Marketing and Communications Jennifer LeMay.
