{"id":106547,"date":"2016-02-23T21:13:14","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T04:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/schools-making-sure-students-are-fed\/"},"modified":"2016-02-23T21:13:14","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T04:13:14","slug":"schools-making-sure-students-are-fed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/schools-making-sure-students-are-fed\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools making sure students are fed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Southwest
Southwest Colorado Community College executive dean Tonya Nelson and student support specialist Kiesa Howell stand with students as they celebrate the opening of the Panther Student Pantry. Students at the college can visit the pantry once a week and take up to six food items and one personal hygiene item.<\/span>Courtesy of Shannon Livick<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Southwest Colorado Community College is opening pantries at both its campuses to help prevent the starving college student cliche from being a reality.<\/p>\n

About three in four students in the Pueblo Community College system, which include campuses in Durango and Mancos, didn\u2019t have access to enough food during a six-month period, a 2014 survey found.<\/p>\n

At 10 community colleges nationwide, about half the students reported not having enough food, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study found.<\/p>\n

To help address the need, SCCC\u2019s west campus opened its Panther Student Pantry on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Automotive student Billy Paul Bailey, 21, was among the first to use the service. The unemployed student is from a family of seven that relies mainly on his father\u2019s income.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe buy the basic necessities and then deal without,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He expects the free pantry will benefit many. About 45 percent of the students who attend the Pueblo Community College system live below the poverty line, said Amy Matthew, a spokeswoman for the college.<\/p>\n

The food pantry at the Pueblo campus has shown the need is real, distributing about 3,000 pounds of food per month.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the reasons SCCC\u2019s Executive Dean Tonya Nelson wanted to open pantries on her campuses for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping when their stomachs are full they learn better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She hopes the pantry on the Durango campus will open before the end of the semester.<\/p>\n

Manna Soup Kitchen donated the food to open the food pantries initially. In the future, Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado will be providing food free to the pantry, said Kiesa Howell, a student success specialist.<\/p>\n

For younger students and their families, the Mancos School District opened a pantry in September, said Janet Fogel, the food service director.<\/p>\n

About 63 percent of the district\u2019s students are eligible for free and reduced lunch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a pretty big number of families that can\u2019t afford food,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The district had been sending food home with students since 2011-12 in their backpacks. But some of the younger students weren\u2019t taking the food because it was so heavy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were finding the kids were just leaving them at school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now anyone is welcome to come to the pantry once a week for food. It is serving 60 to 80 adults and about 120 students per month.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

If you go<\/h4>\n

The community college pantry is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the campus Go!Zone.
\n Each student can take six food items and one hygiene product each week.
\n Students are required to sign in with their student identification number, but they do not need to use their name.
\n The pantry will accept donations on Fridays.
\n For more information call Kiesa Howell at 564-6203.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community college campuses open pantries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[408,438],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-charity","tag-food"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106547"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}