Often overshadowed by the sleigh bells of Christmas, Thanksgiving is a time for many people to come together to celebrate family and friendship over an extravagant meal. However, not every student has access to the goods that go into a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
Trying to combat this issue of food insecurity at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), Associated Students (AS) put together a canned food drive that will go directly to the Basic Needs pantry.
“This is a time where people are celebrating with their families and obviously eating a lot of food, but we wanted to highlight [students] who have more food insecurity,” said fourth-year Lorelai Paige, an organizer of the food drive. “[We want to] solve those problems so they can also have the same access to Thanksgiving and all the festivities.”
The drive continues through Friday, Nov. 17, and Paige notes, “we have [drop-off] locations in the Business and Information Technology building (in the front lobby area), we have one in the Otter Student Union at the front desk and we have one at the library in that main thoroughfare.”
Many students at CSUMB have relocated far away from their families, so it is likely that many will be celebrating Thanksgiving alone or with friends (a.k.a friendsgiving) who are also too far away from home. If you are one of those students, Thanksgiving dinner may be easier to acquire thanks to AS and Basic Needs.
Fourth-year student employee at Basic Needs, Molly Leach, mentioned that “there are so many students who come in [to Basic Needs] every day, or basically every day, who are able to benefit from our services. It makes me really happy to see how many [students] come in all the time.”
Basic Needs is accessible to all CSUMB students, and especially looks to serve those who are struggling with food insecurity.