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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
The Metro Food Bank is settling into its new bigger, better home inside Sigi's Pool Hall and Arcade.
The Student Advisory Committee to the Auraria Board unanimously approved a request Sept. 12 to move the food bank from its old location, a cramped four-by-six-foot closet in the Club Hub, to a bigger space in Sigi's.
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Student coordinator Brittany Pyle stands inside the closet that used to house the Metro Food Bank Sept. 23. The food bank moved from the closet, located in the Club Hub, to a larger office inside Sigi's Pool Hall and Arcade. (Photo by MATT MARSH/mmarsh17@mscd.edu)
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"It's only big enough to hold two shelves of food," Johanna Maes, assistant dean of Student Life and supervisor of the food bank's student coordinators, said of the old space.
"There is no space for staff to sit or to coordinate the process. We are lucky to have had that space as a start up, but we definitely need more in order to meet our need."
The new space inside Sigi's is a small office that is taller, with a 20-foot ceiling, providing much more storage for food as well as a small space for the student coordinators to work.
It also provides more privacy for students visiting the food bank, as they will no longer have to pass through areas where students gather as they did at the Club Hub location.
When the food bank first opened in the spring, only a small number of students were visiting regularly, due partly to inconsistent operating hours, Maes said.
Students from all three colleges on campus can visit the food bank and pick up six non-perishable food items each week.
At the end of the spring semester, the food bank closed to restructure procedures and hire student staff to take over day-to-day operations, but will reopen Sept. 25 in the new, larger space.
When the food bank reopens, Maes estimates that 20 to 25 students per week will visit to pick up food. A new tracking system will be put in place to monitor the number of students picking up items as well as noting what types of food they would like to see in the future.
"We've received a tremendous outpouring of students who are in need of the food bank services and are anxiously awaiting its reopening," Maes said.
One of the newly hired student coordinators, Brittany Pyle, first came to the food bank because she was in need of food.
Pyle is currently working on setting up partnerships with other metro area food banks, such as the Food Bank of the Rockies.
"There shouldn't be any starving people, let alone starving college students," she said.
In honor of the move, a food exchange was held be held Sept. 24, where anyone who donated a non-perishable food item received a free lunch.
Pyle encourages students to continue to donate non-perishable items to the food bank, especially boxed meals, cereal, granola bars or similar items.
"We want all of these shelves full," Pyle said.
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