Pallets of food and supplies are stacked in the hallways of the student center at Oakland University, in Michigan, waiting to be sorted by masked and gloved volunteers who will pack everything up to be driven to people in need in the area, about 30 miles north of Detroit. “We’ve converted the student union into a food-distribution center,” says Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, the university’s president. “Donations are coming from all over the place.”
The effort, a partnership between Oakland and more than 40 community organizations, began delivering food in late March. By the second week of April, more than 600 volunteers had signed up to help, and 42,000 meals had been distributed to 600 households.
Colleges elsewhere have also organized food donations to communities reeling from the economic effects of the crisis. When the University of Arkansas canceled its spring sporting events, the concessionaire donated food sitting in pantries and freezers to four area food banks. Michael Huff, the dean of the hospitality program at Cuyahoga Community College, in Cleveland, says his colleagues went through their walk-in coolers and donated thousands of dollars’ worth of food. And Carthage College’s food-service provider, Sodexo, donated more than 1,600 pounds of food to a local food pantry in Kenosha, Wis. “There is a need out there every day, but especially now in these challenging times,” Jim Risacher, Sodexo’s interim general manager, said in a press release.
To Pescovitz, who is a physician and the former head of the University of Michigan’s health system, this moment presents huge challenges for colleges, but also opportunities to get more involved in the community. “That is really part of our mission,” she says, “and we have a real obligation to do that.”
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