Textbooks or groceries: University food ministry alleviates tough choices

 

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Each Wednesday morning political economy major and South African student Iman ‘Chipo’ Matongo, wearing the requisite face mask, makes her way around a kitchen in La Sierra University’s Sierra Vista Chapel selecting items from a central table piled with fresh and nonperishable food products.

<p> A wide variety of food items are available in the OISS Food Pantry. </p>

A wide variety of food items are available in the OISS Food Pantry.

<p> La Sierra University student Lynette Pingah, left, of Papua New Guinea is with Heidi Weiss-Krumm, director of the Office of International Student Services. </p>

La Sierra University student Lynette Pingah, left, of Papua New Guinea is with Heidi Weiss-Krumm, director of the Office of International Student Services.

<p> Office of International Student Services Director Heidi Weiss-Krumm, left with office manager and Designated Signing Officer Jonathan Finau at a recent food pantry event. In the background, students Lynette Pingah, left, and Enze Zhang. </p>

Office of International Student Services Director Heidi Weiss-Krumm, left with office manager and Designated Signing Officer Jonathan Finau at a recent food pantry event. In the background, students Lynette Pingah, left, and Enze Zhang.

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She is among roughly 15 or so La Sierra students who arrive to choose from bags of rice and beans, vegetables, fruit, pasta, cereal, canned goods and other foods each week. The food pantry, which also provides toiletry items is organized by the university’s Office of International Student Services, or OISS. It is a donor-supported outreach that has grown substantially since its inception in 2010 with the arrival of OISS Director Heidi Weiss-Krumm. For students like Matongo, it offers a safety net from a fall into devastating choices between proper nutrition or necessary textbooks and study resources.

“To be honest, I think I would have to sacrifice some textbooks to try to minimize, but I'll still try to minimize my food intake because I already do that. I'd have to budget,” she said, noting the cost of one textbook is $150. “Most of us who stayed in Calkins [Hall] ended up having to go the food pantry which like saved us a lot. Most of the girls were in need.”

Prior to the onslaught of COVID-19, a significant number of college students in the United States shouldered such difficult choices -- buy textbooks or buy food. Then the pandemic, with its accompanying widespread and sudden economic devastation substantially worsened these vulnerabilities and more so for underrepresented groups, research shows.

The OISS food program, which Weiss-Krumm calls her department’s ministry, strives to fill the gap for La Sierra’s students in need, whether they are from the U.S. or other countries. She and Jonathan Finau, OISS Designated Signing Officer for immigration matters pool financial donations from family members, friends, the OISS office budget and their own pockets which Weiss-Krumm uses to buy groceries at discounted rates. Purchased goods are supplemented with contributions of citrus fruit, bread, dairy products and other foods from individuals including La Sierra University Church members, nonprofits and government programs.

La Sierra University students Lynette Pingah, left, from Papua New Guinea, a Human Resources major, and Enze Zhang, a Ph.D. student from China studying in the School of Education browse through items in the OISS food pantry.

Generous contributors to the student food ministry have included the late Gary Stanhiser, a longtime advocate of missions and humanitarian outreach who frequently delivered truckloads of oranges to the international students office and whose wife, Ruth who is a La Sierra alumnus; Debbie Banks Austin, a member of the Mt. Rubidoux SDA Church who in 2019 began donating large bags of various leftover breads from Panera Bread restaurants and Ezekiel 4:9 bread from Food for Life; and Settlement House, a food distribution service in Corona.

Prior to the pandemic, OISS kept food and toiletry items stocked in its Administration building office. Around 2013 the food ministry broadened its efforts by forming a partnership with International Student Pantry, Inc., a nonprofit based out of Campus Hill SDA Church in Loma Linda and which was founded by La Sierra assistant financial services director Audrey Gaspard and her husband. “[The need] kept growing and soon Jon or I would drive to [Loma Linda] to pick up food every month and we would pack the grocery bags,” Weiss-Krumm said.

As the pandemic swept across the state and nation at the end of last year’s winter season, local educational institutions were forced to close their campuses and move operations online including La Sierra University. This meant the sudden closure of the OISS food pantry in the Administration building. Most of La Sierra’s students went home to pursue their studies online but a few international students continued living in La Sierra’s dorms that were reconfigured under health and safety protocol or in off-campus housing.

“The students are so good about sharing and not taking if they don’t need it." - Heidi Weiss-Krumm, Director, Office of International Student Services

The day before the campus closure on March 16, 2020, Weiss-Krumm boxed up all the food supplies in their offices – chips, snacks, yogurt, fruit and other items – and distributed the food to the remaining dorm students. “Covid changed the whole thing,” Weiss-Krumm said.

With the OISS food pantry temporarily shuttered and the need increasing, the university’s Division of Student Life organized an emergency response initiative called La Sierra Cares in April in partnership with the La Sierra University Church and assisted by student leaders from La Sierra’s missions and outreach program. The team distributed food and supplies each Wednesday in a drive-through operation set up in the Sierra Vista Chapel parking lot for students and staff who enrolled in the program. The emergency outreach continued through the summer supported by a donation and the La Sierra University Church food pantry.

As fall quarter began, the La Sierra Cares program pivoted to the OISS Food Pantry under Krumm and Finau’s purview. They re-located and opened the pantry in Sierra Vista Chapel kitchen for all in-need La Sierra students. “Jon and I began working the food pantry out of Sierra Vista Chapel in August,” said Weiss-Krumm. “We started by advertising to our food pantry list, dorm list, and international student list. We sent them emails and reminders via social media to sign up and come get food.”

Students are allowed into the Sierra Vista Chapel kitchen two at a time in keeping with physical distancing protocol to shop for available food and supplies. “The students are so good about sharing and not taking if they don’t need it,” Weiss-Krumm noted.

Covid crunch

With many students losing jobs and some unable to rely on family support, food insecurity among college students appears to have increased significantly during the pandemic, according to several sources. An August 2020 article in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior notes that prior to the pandemic, about one in three college students experienced food insecurity. Then the COVID-19 pandemic brought massive job losses particularly impacting the 18 – 24-year-old demographic. “A growing patchwork of recent research studies further shows college students experiencing food insecurity are in poorer health and have higher rates of depression, lower grades, and more academic challenges,” the authors write.

The impact is particularly severe for underrepresented students who often struggled prior to the pandemic. A detailed study between May and July last year by The Student Experience in the Research University Consortium at the University of California, Berkeley pulled data from 31,687 undergraduates at nine public research universities covering financial issues, academic hurdles, wellness and safety challenges, housing and food insecurities. Respectively Latinx, Black, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaskan Native respondents reported experiencing difficulty acquiring sufficient food or held concerns about their ability to acquire food at nearly double or more than double the rate of white students.

Last year rained crises upon Matongo’s family. Her parents in South Africa had operated a successful event management company before COVID-19 brought business to an abrupt halt. Events were canceled, but vendors under contract with the company still had to be paid. Matongo didn’t want to add to her family’s burdens by asking for money to be sent to her in the U.S.

“I know they have their own expenses, things they need, so I try as much as I can not to bother them,” she commented, adding that she is applying through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for an emergency work permit that would allow her to get a job off campus."

“I actually believe this year is going to be better for us, because I trust that God will make this year better than last year.”  - Iman 'Chipo' Matongo, political economy major

A university junior, Matongo envisions a career as a war journalist covering conflict in Africa. When selecting universities for pursuing a political economy degree she applied to around 50 schools in the United States with such programs. Raised in a Christian family, she ultimately chose La Sierra University over another school that had accepted her because of La Sierra University’s Christian foundation, she said. “My mom said, ‘I think La Sierra would be better because of the Christian values," Matongo said.

After the pandemic closed La Sierra’s onsite operations, the campus went still and coyotes and other animals rambled through the grounds. “The silence of the dorm, you could hear a pin drop,” Matongo noted. “Hopefully soon with the vaccine, more people come and the campus can get back to life, and we can get back to being college students experiencing college.” Matongo has found that online classes have taxed her ability to focus but she is grateful for the detailed pandemic health protocol which include weekly testing and daily wellness checks and which have thus far kept a campus outbreak at bay. She is looking forward to an upcoming fall quarter that brings the college experience back to life. The university announced its decision in January to re-open the campus this fall with details forthcoming on how that will be done.

Meanwhile, she and her international dormmates in the women’s residence hall who hail from such countries as Korea, China, Mexico and Spain, have been enjoying newfound friendships formed over the past months as they have had only each other’s company. “That is my family Calkins [Hall] family, as I call them,” said Matongo. “I think when the COVID happened the girls became closer, most of us never actually spoke to each other before the pandemic. But after it happened, the girls in Calkins got closer and the dean made sure that all the girls can talk to each other. Now we’re all friends.”

With the intense stresses of the past year beginning to fall away, Matongo casts a hopeful eye on the future. “I actually believe this year is going to be better for us, because I trust that God will make this year better than last year,” she said.

Soul food

Finau in an email interview said he strives to be the voice for the students in connecting them with the food they need. “That moment feels like a small burden is lifted off my shoulder because I don't have to worry that students will starve,” he said. “I used to be in their shoes struggling to pay for my tuition and having limited access to food. The only difference is that I asked around for help and I have noticed that students are shy to ask nowadays.”

For Weiss-Krumm, the food pantry is a labor of love and an opportunity to pay it forward.

“These are my kids. These are the ones we’re going to help,” she said. “I’ve been blessed way more [than I’ve given].”

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