“After three years since the initial launch of the food pantry on campus, the New School opened up a second food pantry location at Loeb Residence Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 2.
Both food pantries supply food provisions and other necessity-based resources to all New School students. Their main objective is to provide resources for students ‘who do not have the means to buy adequate food for themselves,” according to their mission statement.
“We decided to open a second location to accommodate the growing numbers of food pantry users,” said Andrea MacFarlane, Assistant Director of Student Support and Crisis Management. “We chose to open it in the Loeb Residence Hall because we know that about 1/4 of our food pantry users live on campus, and also because placing it in the residence hall allows for greater flexibility in terms of evening hours to accommodate varying student schedules. Loeb is also still located close enough to main campus to be convenient for non-residents as well, as this pantry is open to all New School students.”
The Loeb Food Pantry is located on 135 E 13th St and operates on Wednesdays from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Zoe Flike, a Community Assistant at Loeb Hall, helps facilitate the food pantry. “The first day, 17 people showed up. We were pretty surprised,”she said.
Although the pantry is in its early stages, Flike has already seen how students have benefited from the resources. “Everyone comes in with a good attitude, the pantry helps them all,” she said. Flike realizes that some students may feel discouraged from coming, but she wants everyone to know they are welcome: “People feel like if they don’t struggle it’s wrong to go, which isn’t true.”
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