With the economic impact of the pandemic still affecting many in the San Diego City College community, the Student Affairs department continues providing food to students and community members who need it through Hunger Action Days.

Hunger Action Days take place on the first Tuesday and third Monday of every month from 12 to 2 p.m. Student Affairs, in collaboration with the San Diego Food Bank and Feeding San Diego, hosts the events.

Hunger Action Days offers drive-through or in-person pick-up options at their distribution station located in Lot 8 (behind the LRC) to pick up food items.

Hunger Action Day and the new episode of #CityCookingChallenge were covered in this week’s edition of Newscene.

Acting Dean of Student Affairs Adan Sanchez stated that the school plans to expand its previous pre-pandemic on-campus food pantry to a larger fully stocked one.

Sanchez hopes that in the future, students and faculty will have access to this resource that will be located in the T building. 

Sanchez added that Student Affairs is trying to “demystify” the negative connotations of asking for help and obtaining resources that are free.

“There is still culturally and personally, a lot of folks who are like, ‘no, I don’t want to be seen in that category,’” Sanchez said.

The amount of food provided twice a month is subject to the number of people who sign up using the pre-registration online form.

Those interested in Hunger Action Days can go to the Student Affairs page and find the form to sign up here.

Among those who volunteered at the event held on Oct. 5 was City College Scholarship Coordinator Sylvia Ramirez.

She guessed that the recurring event usually services about 100-150 cars, which is about 300-400 people, depending on the size of the household.

“You get to learn about everyone around here because the community comes as well,” Ramirez said.

Among those stopping by was Marine Corps veteran and student Samantha Jones.

“I heard about Hunger Action Days through various ways, word of mouth and I read about it on the Associated Students Government page,” Jones said.

Any leftover bags of food are never wasted. The team who works the event even gives out more than one bag of food if those who registered didn’t show up and then shares the remainder with the local community.

Multimedia journalist Kathy Archibald contributed to this report.

To learn ways you can create delicious meals from your Hunger Action Day groceries, check out what CTTV’s Susana Serrano cooked on the latest edition of #CityCookingChallenge on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CUst4q_jpWh/?utm_medium=copy_link