Cougar Pantry strives for better: ascending to new heights to elevate support to students

By Layah Lopes | Published December 7, 2023

With food insecurity within the college community being an immediate concern, Kean University’s Cougar Pantry, located in Downs Hall’s Wellness Center, is striving to give Kean students a resourceful experience whether they reside on or off campus. 

The Wellness Center provides students with basic needs of all sorts, such as perishable (including protein and produce) and non-perishable foods, business attire from the career closet, basic hygiene supplies, and even laptop loaners.

Community care coordinator Carla Vitola expressed her thoughts on why these services to students were so important. 

“Kean has an extremely resilient and resourceful group of students; giving them access to these basic-needs items helps them persist to graduation and beyond,” Vitola said.

When registered students gain access to an online portal called “Smart Choice” where they are allowed to select basic hygiene and food items, along with choosing convenient pick-up times.

Once registered with the Cougar Pantry, each student is provided a unique PIN number to access refrigerated lockers, ensuring flexibility in retrieving items.

Assistant Director of Operations, Alice Colalillo, shared some of the reasons for food insecurity within the college community, citing that one reason could be the growing population of low-income college students.

With high college costs, insufficient financial aid, and students still having to deal with personal financial hardships, money can wear thin leaving students struggling to afford basic necessities.

Colalillo also said a weak labor market for part-time workers, college resources declining per capita, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) policies that specifically exclude many college students from participating all play a role in campus-wide food insecurity.

To connect with students, the pantry has forged alliances with departments and campus leaders that assist students with advisement or needs assessments. In the event a student shares concerns about a lack of resources to said connections they will be directed to the cougar pantry.

They have also established a connection with the community organization St. Joseph’s Social Center in Elizabeth, to ensure that resources are distributed properly and to maximize the consumption of what is donated.

Diverse promotional efforts, including in-person events at new student orientations, on-campus print and email news blasts, and coverage in local news media, have also been instrumental.

Matriculated Student eligibility is assessed on a case-by-case basis, ensuring a tailored approach. “At Cougar Pantry intake, we assess various areas of need to make certain to connect the students to all available resources on and off campus,” Colalillo said.

With positive outcomes materializing the pantry has seen three times the amount of students compared to the previous semester.

“We have already experienced an increase in utilization of Cougar Pantry and we hope to continue to address and tackle both basic needs and food insecurity at Kean University,” said Genique Stanislaus, executive director of the Kean Wellness Center.

Notably, the Cougar Pantry has recently served over 360 Kean students by provisioning professional attire via the Career Closet.

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