Patriot Pantry partners with Capital Area Food Bank for food delivery

Colleen Rich — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 19:28:06 +0000

Patriot Pantry partners with Capital Area Food Bank for food delivery Colleen Rich Thu, 11/30/2023 - 14:28

��AV’s Patriot Pantry, in cooperation with the Capital Area Food Bank, is delivering groceries to food-insecure Mason students and their families.

Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

“We started from a place of understanding that students have a lot of demands being put on their time and on their resources and began with the simple premise that addressing food needs would increase their success rates,” said Sabrina Tadele, director of strategic initiatives at the food bank, a hunger relief organization that works with community partners throughout the Washington, D.C., region.

The food bank delivers shelf-stable groceries and fresh produce to Mason, which, in cooperation with DoorDash, are then delivered to students’ homes within a 15-mile radius of the Fairfax Campus.

“[DoorDash] has been very, very generous with nonprofits, including the whole national network of food banks,” said Tadele.

The Patriot Pantry was the focus of Mason Vision Day 2023, a day of focused philanthropy for the Mason community. Funds raised on Mason Vision Day helped to secure student meal vouchers for on-campus dining, provide gift cards for local grocery stores, and to supply the Patriot Pantry, which is operated by the Student Support and Advocacy Center within University Life.

As part of Mason Vision Day, the food bank matched $30,000 of the funds raised in the form of credits in its online ordering portal, expanding access to a greater variety of foods.

“Food insecurity is often an experience compounded by other forms of basic need insecurity, such as financial instability and unstable transportation,” said Dwayne Hamilton Jr., assistant director for basic needs at Mason’s Student Support and Advocacy Center. “The Home Delivery Program promotes consistent and healthy food intake while addressing financial and transportation barriers that impact access. Confronting these obstacles enables students to devote their full attention to their academics.”

Mason staff fill orders and arrange for food delivery to students. CAFB conducts surveys with students at the beginning and end of each semester to measure the degree of a student’s food insecurity, as well as students’ subjective measures of well-being: physical health, mental health, and ability to focus in class.

Mason will provide academic data with anonymized identifiers, including information on students’ enrollment intensity, time to graduation, and attrition and retention.

“We spent a lot of time with our evaluation specialist designing the surveys the students will receive,” said Tadele. “We have to be able to understand whether [the program] works or not.”

“One of our broader goals with these partnerships is that we want to give students the support they need to finish their programs and then earn living-wage jobs and be able to contribute to our local economy. It’s a cyclical effect,” said Grace Brown, CAFB strategic initiatives manager.

This article originally appeared in University Life's Succeed magazine in a slightly different form.

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Capital Area Food Bank announces a boost for Mason Vision Day—and beyond

Colleen Rich — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 20:15:28 +0000

Capital Area Food Bank announces a boost for Mason Vision Day—and beyond Colleen Rich Wed, 04/05/2023 - 16:15

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��AV has an important ally in its work to counter food insecurity among its students: The Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB) has announced that it is partnering with Mason to address campus food insecurity and will match the funds raised during Mason Vision Day.

“We are thrilled to have a partner in Capital Area Food Bank, because our organizations share a common understanding that it takes more than a meal to solve hunger,” said Rose Pascarell, Mason’s vice president for University Life.

The CAFB is the anchor of hunger relief infrastructure across the Washington, D.C., region, providing more than 50 million meals to communities in the area each year. Like Mason, the food bank approaches the problem of food insecurity through multiple channels and achieves its mission through many kinds of partnerships—including those with food distributors and retailers, farms, institutions, individuals, and other nonprofit organizations.

CAFB’s generous investment around Mason Vision Day is just a start: CAFB is building on existing relationships with community colleges in the Washington, D.C., area, and looking to Mason as one of the first four-year public institutions with whom it will partner to offer services and resources.

“The success of our region’s students creates positive ripple effects for individuals, families, and our local economy that will last well into the future,” said Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank. “The CAFB is committed to partnering with institutions like Mason to ensure that hunger is never a barrier to a student’s academic achievement, or to fulfilling their highest potential.”

It is through these partnerships, and multiple solutions and community partners, that Mason hopes to move beyond food distribution to focus on tackling the root causes of hunger and inequity.

“Food insecurity is a complex problem that we simply can’t address through one solution,” said Pascarell. “Partnership with organizations, like the Capital Area Food Bank, that understand the scope of the problem and provides leadership in our region to make a difference, goes a long way toward helping us address food insecurity more holistically on our campuses.”

Topics

Campus News

Mason Vision Day

food insecurity

Capital Area Food Bank