The College of the Desert’s food pantry offers various essentials, such as snacks, drinks, food items like fruits and vegetables, baby clothes, diapers, detergent and utilities.
The Food Pantry is part of the College’s Basic Needs Center and is located on the South Annex of the campus. The Interim Manager for the Basic Needs Center, Jocelyn Vargas, said, “The program’s goal and service are to provide an essential place for students at the College of the Desert to meet their basic needs.”
The College partnered with Find Food Bank in the Coachella Valley, which provides food all over the valley, to launch two food pantries. One in Indio opened in October 2022, and one in Palm Desert in September 2022, established over a year ago. Vargas says the initial conversations to have the pantry happened during the “COVID-19 pandemic” when the idea came about to have a place of “excellence” for students to meet additional basic needs when returning to the campus from online learning. They knew that food insecurity would be a significant challenge for families and students. Even before the pandemic, there was legislation for students in California to have access to basic needs at College.
Vargas says, “The three main needs students have are access to food, housing and transportation.” Last spring, a survey was taken, with approximately 1,000 responses from students on campus mentioning these three needs: food, housing and transportation.
The College of the Desert started a partnership last summer with Jewish Family Services of San Diego County to provide additional support for students. Meanwhile, transportation and housing support need to be expanded, requiring assistance from outside agencies.
Vargas said the students and families are thankful the pantry is available on campus, enabling them to support their kids and other families needing housing financially. During October, between the Indio and Palm Desert Campuses, about 980 students were served. In October, the College distributed 36,000 pounds of food. Within the year the pantry was established, it received up to 200,000 pounds of food. That year, both pantries served 2,483 households, with 1,308 students at Palm Desert and 1,175 at Indio.
