By Ulices Samaniego

The Spartan Food Pantry is hosting a food/basic needs drive through March 11. The drive is an effort to get the food pantry back up and running as during the past month they have made some renovations.

It is scheduled to reopen Monday, March 7, to students.

The Spartan Pantry is run by the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion (SDI), which also has work-study students and a couple student volunteers help with pantry initiatives. In the past, other campus departments, campus offices, and individual campus organizations have hosted food drives to benefit the pantry.

Typically, the pantry hosts a large food drive at the beginning of the semester to fill up. The pantry also hosts drives at the end of the academic school year when residence halls are closing for the summer and students empty out their food cabinets. Occasionally, they will have food drives throughout the year to help keep up with demand.

The Spartan Food Pantry serves any York College student who experiences food or basic needs at any point during his or her time at York College. It operates on the premise that YCP students should not have to wonder where their next meal is coming from. Ines M. Ramirez, interim director of Student Diversity and Inclusion, described the panty’s purpose like this: “Food insecurity while in college can have detrimental effects on students’ academic performance and health. With the support of the YCP community, the Spartan Food Pantry can help reduce food and basic needs insecurity for our York College students.”

The items in the pantry are all generous donations from students, alumni, friends of the college, and YCP faculty and staff. The newest donation to the pantry is the shelving, which was added over the past month.

The Spartan Pantry is available to student during office hours. Students can sign up online in the Spartan Food Pantry calendar to reserve a shopping time. They can also reserve a shopping time by calling the SDI office at 717–815–1786, emailing at sdi@ycp.edu, or stopping by.

For anyone looking to donate to the pantry, the process is easy. You can simply drop off food or basic needs donations at the SDI office, SU 101. You could also shop the pantry’s Amazon Wishlist and have your donations shipped straight to the pantry. It also takes monetary donations online through the “GIVE” link on the YCP website where you can choose the Spartan Pantry as the recipient of your donation or simply drop the check off at the SDI office.

Ulices Samaniego is a senior Integrated Marketing Communications major at York college of Pennsylvania.